


The Dool Tree

by LadyHeliotrope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 34,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22509292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHeliotrope/pseuds/LadyHeliotrope
Summary: Escoger's Time-crossed Love Triangle Challenge. SSHG or SSLE. In October 1995, Hermione Granger accidentally goes back in time, to the time and place of Severus Snape's Worst Memory in June 1976. Can she help to improve his life? AU. Post GoF.
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**The Dool Tree**

Chapter 1

Climbing trees wasn't a specialty of Hermione Granger's, but Ron compelled her.

"Come on, 'Mione, kick off your shoes and just try it!"

She'd been hesitant from the upstart, and gazed in horrified fascination as the boys climbed the old, gnarly sycamore. Even if she wasn't the sort of girl who preferred to keep her feet on solid ground, she didn't like the idea of climbing the tree.

"Listen," she demanded, "hasn't either of you read _Hogwarts, a History_ yet? This tree, was used by the Highland Chieftains of the old wizarding clans to hang criminals. It's what they call a Dool Tree, 'dool' meaning 'sorrow'. See how it's on this little hill? It's called a Moot Hill."

"Aw, shove it, 'Mione," Ron said dispassionately, but Harry stopped climbing and looked at her.

"How long has it been since they hung anyone here?" he asked carefully.

"Hundreds of years, of course," replied Hermione with a huff. "They stopped such barbaric practices on school grounds during the reign of Victoria, when they first built the fence around the castle gardens."

"All right," Harry said, no longer spooked. "Then join us up here. You'd like to experience this piece of history, wouldn't you?"

He knew Hermione so well; of course he was right. The temptation was great, and Hermione eventually gave in, though she was still wary. She didn't like heights as a general rule, and she cast her eyes up the tree to estimate how high she dared to go.

"All right, but only for a moment," she said, removing her shoes and spelling her socks so that they wouldn't get moist on the grass. She then hesitated; the tree was bereaved of leaves this bright October day, and it occurred to her that taking advantage of its undress by climbing on it would be dreadfully uncouth.

"What're you waiting for? Don't worry about Umbridge, when we left Potions she was trying to make Snape—the greasy bat—change his teaching curriculum. She'll be at it a while; that Snape can be a real brick sometimes."

"The Inquisitional Squad could come around," she replied as a half-hearted excuse.

"Who cares?" Ron insisted. "We've got the advantage from up here. If we see the little blighters, we'll come right down, all right?"

He extended his strong warm hand, which she accepted. Soon, she was on the first branch, but Ron didn't let go.

"Ronald," she reminded him firmly, and his cheeks got red as he hastily withdrew.

She looked around her and was pleased at the sight. _Perhaps a new perspective isn't half bad_ , she decided, admiring the view of Hogwarts from a vantage of four feet higher than usual. A shiver—not from the brisk temperature of the autumn afternoon—came to her as she shared the same view that dozens of men across history had seen in their last seconds. _Honestly, it could be worse,_ she thought to herself. _What's it like from higher?_

"Blimey, there she goes!" exclaimed Ron with enthusiasm as she followed the boys up into the tree, higher and higher.

"It's not _that_ exciting," Hermione said when they paused to stop. They were about fifteen feet in the air, and the three of them sat on a long, strong branch. If the view below had been inspiring, the one up there was exhilarating.

 _Maybe next summer, mum and dad and I can go somewhere other than France for the holiday_ , she decided. _Someplace that we could take an airplane to get to. Florida would be nice._

Her mind drifted back to the death that had taken place under that tree, and she cast a glance around her, looking for any indication as to what branch might have been the one favored by executioners. Irony being as unpredictable and unexpected as love, there was a deep ridge at the end of the very branch below that on which they rested.

 _How awful_ , she decided, extending her legs down until her feet touched the curveature of the other branch below. Soon she was standing on the gallows branch, and she shuffled sideways, like a crab, towards the end of it. She tried to tell herself that she was not driven by a fascination with abomination, but instead curiosity about what it'd be like to rig the rope. To help her keep her balance, she kept her belly up against the bigger branch from which she'd descended.

"Careful, 'Mione," interjected Ron, and Hermione whipped her head upwards to look at him. Despite his evident concern, Ron's mouth was agape, indicating that he enjoyed his view of what she kept down her shirt.

"I'm perfectly capable of managing myself, Ronald," she retorted, hitching up her blouse with a jerk. Then, having reached the end of the branch, she lowered herself down to a squat. Running her fingers in the deep cut in the bark, she supposed that it had been smoothed by many ropes with struggling victims on their ends. It was sickening.

She stood again, feeling mildly queasy. For one blissful moment, she saw everything that there was to see in the Hogwarts gardens: under the gracefully-aging rowan and oak trees (and the distant Whomping Willow) lay a vista of hearty Scotch roses, clusters of velvet-red hydrangeas, and patches of dainty fuchsias, with large patches of heather here and there. Not a quarter mile away from them was the enormous castle's doors—and out of them was coming a smirking Draco Malfoy et company.

Startled by the sudden appearance of The Ferret, Hermione yelped and took a step back. This was a terrible mistake, considering the branch didn't exist where she laid her foot.

The last words she heard before she hit the ground were, "It's Malfoy!", but she couldn't tell if they came from Harry or Ron.


	2. Chapter 2

When Hermione resumed consciousness, her face was buried in the grass and there was something tough and firm under her stomach. It felt like her leather book-bag. Before she could think about anything else, she heard a shout from nearby.

"Evans! Hey, Evans!"

'Evans' apparently didn't reply, and Hermione didn't care. Feeling as winded as if an elephant had sat on her chest, she rose, blinked, and rubbed her eyes.

Then she blinked and rubbed her eyes again. She thought she saw Harry, Professor Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black.

"What is it with her?" said Harry, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.

"Reading between the lines, I'd say she thinks you're a bit conceited, mate," said Sirius.

"Right," said Harry, who looked furious now, "right –"

There was a brilliant flash of light, and suddenly she saw a gangly boy hanging upside-down in the air above her.

"Move away, young lady," said Harry dismissively, approaching the other boy, whose robes and long black hair flailed around him. "Now, who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?" (1)

She didn't know what was happening—am I in a dream?—but she couldn't believe Harry would be so cruel to anybody, especially a fellow student.

"Harry James Potter, what on earth do you think you're doing?" she demanded, rising with anger in her eyes. "Let him down. Do you want to be expelled?"

Hearing snickering from Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black, she rounded on them too. "I don't know why either of you is here..." she began, but then she realized that each of them was significantly younger than when she had seen them last. Peter didn't even have facial hair, while Sirius had a scrawny beard. Casting a look at Lupin, she saw he had lost his constantly-haunted expression, and then she took a double-take at Harry. It wasn't Harry, though it really was the splitting image of him. However, his eyes weren't green.

She then realized that something very, very bad had happened, and she spun around to search for her book-bag. It was right where she had landed, and she dove on her knees to dump everything out of it.

I knew it was a bad idea to try and use the time-turner again this year...(2) she thought, praying and hoping that what she thought had happened hadn't happened.

But it had: her time-turner was crushed to pieces, and the glittery sand from inside it spilled into the wet grass.

Bollocks.

She bit her lip and stood up, trembling and nervous. What does this mean? I suppose I'm just back a few years, which is all very well. I should go find Dumbledore. But first...to deal with this.

A strong voice permeated her thoughts. "Girl, I see you're a Gryffindor from your tie, but who are you? I've never seen you before. Are you in our year?"

That's Harry's father, she realized, and, solemn, she shook her head. "Erm...no," she managed to squeak, "I'm...Hermione Granger."

"You showed up kinda suddenly," Pettigrew (the rat!) said, sounding suspicious.

"Well, I just fell out of this tree," Hermione retorted, feeling at odds with logic with her panic. "Now, Pro-erm, Lupin, make him let this boy down. It's not right to string people up like this. Much less threaten to strip them publicly."

"Ahem. She's quite right, Prongs," Lupin said, sounding more than a mite guilty for not having stepped in sooner. "Let Snape down, and then why don't you go and find Lily and apologize."

Snape? thought Hermione in shock. That's Snape?

She hadn't hitherto looked at him, but now she did. It was awe-inspiring and humbling to see the future Professor of Potions suspended in midair, exposing his underwear and looking positively sick.

In fact, he immediately was sick, all over the grass.

The Marauders laughed, even Lupin, and Hermione was inflamed by their barbarity. To her immense gratitude, she did have her wand in her sleeve, and it was unbroken. With a flick, she reversed the Levicorpus and gently lowered the retching figure to a clean spot of grass. She wasn't sure what to think, but she registered a new piece of knowledge: if this is how James Potter treated Snape when they were kids, then no wonder Snape hates Harry!

"Leave," she commanded the Marauders. "Or, apologize, and then leave."

James Potter grimly shook his head, but then he met Hermione's eyes, and he cowered. "All right, fine," he snapped, and he turned around, beckoning for his friends to follow. They didn't look back once.

She then diverted her attention to Snape, who was curled up, his face buried between his knees, shaking like a leaf.

"Are you...okay?" she asked, wondering if the word 'okay' was around in whatever decade this was.

He didn't respond, and she realized that he was crying and trying to hide it.

Not knowing what to do, and feeling rather hopeless herself, she sat next to him. He didn't seem to notice.

"You aren't, I guess. Neither am I," she confessed, placing a hand on her stomach. There would be a bruise there tomorrow, she knew. "Falling out of trees doesn't suit me."

She saw his muscles tense, as if in anger...or perhaps fright.

You know, where I come from, you're my professor—and a bloody frightening professor, too, she thought about saying. She knew that'd be ridiculous, though, given the situation.

"I think we should leave. More people are coming out. Here." She dug in her bag and brought out a fistful of tissues. "Wipe up your face and let's go in, okay? I..."

It shocked her when she realized that his tears were even more terrifying than all the times he'd scowled, shouted, and been ruthlessly cruel in class. I can't bear to see such a strong man so weak, she acknowledged. And it's not fair that someone I've hated so long can elicit so much pity now.

While thus distracted, she felt a hand snatch the tissues from her, and when she looked back at Snape, he was mopping up his silent tears. His head was bent in a desperate attempt to save his pride.

"Thank you," he managed to splutter when he had finished, deep shame and grief in his eyes. "I...I'll be all right, now." He stood up shakily, wordlessly accio-ing his wand and banishing the contents of his stomach that lay on the grass. "Thanks," he croaked again, and then raced away as fast as his spindly legs could carry him.

She stood, picked up her book-bag, and prepared to leave. Tree of Sorrow indeed, she decided as she cast her eyes over the Dool Tree one last time. And that wasn't even a real hanging.


	3. Chapter 3

"...And that's really all I know, Professor. Of course Ronald and I _know_ thatHarry was telling the truth about the Dark Lord's return, but we really can't do very much. We _were_ planning to start this group called Dumbledore's Army, which I hope Ron and Harry won't stifle before I get back to them. It'd be a DADA club of sorts, since that...Professor Umbridge won't teach us properly."

After saying this, Hermione unstuck the lemon-drop from the roof of her mouth and continued to roll it on the back of her tongue. (She never chewed her candies on pain of cavities.)

Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the age, merely nodded, his motion feeble and aloof.

"You've been a great help, Miss Granger," he said, sounding weary. "You have, however inadvertently, proven some of my worst fears about Tom Riddle to be correct."

He sighed heavily, and Hermione fidgeted. Dumbledore had promised to discuss her personal options at the beginning of the conversation, but postponed the brainstorming until after he'd pumped her for information about the future. Now, however, she was eager to get back to her own time.

"I hope I've made things a little easier for you, sir," Hermione replied warmly, and then directed the conversation elsewhere. "Well, Professor, it's been a pleasant visit, sir, but I'd really like to get back to my own time. How can I go about that? I hope it won't be _too_ inconvenient?"

Dumbledore's response was nil, and Hermione suddenly felt very cold.

"It...it _isn't_ all that difficult, is it, sir?"

Solemn eyes met hers, and she blinked.

"Miss Granger...your situation is certainly unique; I've never heard of an instance of this happening before with a broken time-turner. Usually they're enchanted so as to be impervious to damage, at least in theory."

Hermione sat straighter. Dumbledore wasn't saying positively _no_ or _yes_ , but he sounded doubtful. But there was an answer; she was _sure_ of that, and it would be in the library. At least, that's what she hoped.

"Before you think of research, Miss Granger," the perceptive old man said, "I must remind you that this _is_ the magical world." The twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes was unnerving and made her jittery. She looked away, feeling strangely uncomfortable. "Now, as I recollect, there's a certain law of magic that states--correct me if I say it wrongly; as I get older, I'm afraid my memory for word order becomes increasingly wobbly--that _there always will be a first time for all occurrences, and there will often be an only time for some of those._ But I'm afraid I don't remember the rest."

"That's Fletcher's Law of Magic, Part One," Hermione helped, feeling more at ease when called upon to recite. "Part Two states that _Of these anomalies, very few of them are ever recorded--if only because they occurred beyond the reach of literacy or because they haven't occurred yet._ "

Dumbledore's eyes were alight. "Very good, Miss Granger-- _very_ good indeed. You are immensely bright, I can see."

She waited for her validation, for her reward, and was disappointed at the empty space behind his words. _No 'Five points to Gryffindor'?_ But of course, this was not the Dumbledore who had talked to her parents when she'd received her Hogwarts letter, not the Dumbledore who had seen her sorted, and not the Dumbledore would bet his last knut on her getting straight O's on her O.W.L.S. To him, she wasn't even a Gryffindor, not even a student. She wasn't even supposed to exist--she was an _anomaly._

This realization began to perplex, annoy, and terrify Hermione. As a result, she fell back upon her favorite mantra: research must be done. "But there surely must be _something_ about this sort of phenomenon, Professor! I mean, the first time-turner was constructed and tested in 1790, as I'm sure you know. After they became available as a luxury item in 1835, they were abused awfully, causing many headaches and much confusion until the Edict of Morgan in 1877, which of course banned their usage save in Ministry-approved situations. Surely within all that time, someone _must_ have had _some_ sort of similar experience to me..."

However, at meeting the impasse of Dumbledore's eyes, her lips stopped moving.

"As impressed as I am by your eidetic memory, Miss Granger, I sadly must inform you that I see no solution. If you wish to search for one on your own, so be it. I admire your persevering spirit and...how should I say it?...your 'can-do' attitude. You said you were a Gryffindor, and I'm certain that you're a credit to the noble house." Behind the compliments, however, Dumbledore's eyes were stern, if not a little sad.

"What are you saying, sir?" Hermione's gut was twisting inside of her, and her throat began to throb. "Are you saying...that I'll be stuck here indefinitely?"

"You must admit, Miss Granger, the likelihood of you returning to your own time isn't very good."

Emotion seized her; it was like a pronouncement of death. She wasn't ever going home. For, how could the almighty Dumbledore be wrong?

"I...for...is that..."

But she couldn't produce a single coherent word. As she bent her head, the crippling of her hope manifest in her miserable pose, she wished ardently for Ronald.

 _I'm never going to see him again_ , the realization struck her. _Neither him nor Harry nor my parents nor any of my Professors nor my books nor my essays..._

Her eyes closed, and she pretended for one moment that Ron... _her_ Ron...was standing beside her with all his inglorious manliness. His nasty beard he'd been trying to grow, his ridiculous lopsided grin, his stupid Chudley Cannons shirt, his terribly intimidating biceps, his hideous red hair...

_...Ronald Weasley, you get right out of my mind right now!_

Her mind, against her will, began to flip through second-long snapshots of the most confusing person in her life.

_How funny he looked at the Yule Ball last year...and how jealous he was of Viktor!...and, oh, how he looked at me that one time when Lavender dragged him off to snog in a broom closet...and how disgustingly he shovels food into his mouth...and how pig-headed he can be...and how stable he is, how unchanging, how manly..._

And suddenly she was thinking of earlier, and of Ronald's open mouth as his eyes pried beyond the realms of propriety...which reminded her of _whom_ exactly had encouraged her to climb that old tree, and provided a likely reason _why._

_Oh! How I hate him!_

She began to cry wholeheartedly: mourning Ronald's puerility and her stupidity. She should have refused to climb the tree, she should have sat there and recited facts at them until they came down, she should have left them to get caught by Draco and his stupid Inquisitional Squad.

Of course, the boys never would have left her like that if she'd been the one with the silly idea to climb the tree. They would have joined her without question.

But she was Hermione Granger, and she never had silly ideas. Except...well...maybe the idea that she was as in love with Ron.

That was _truly_ silly. Why should she be in love with such an inconsiderate pig? Especially since they'd never kissed, and he'd never paid her any attentions except as his homework whore, and now they'd never see each other again.

Yes, she was very silly indeed. And she hated herself for it.


	4. Chapter 4

Dumbledore's only consolation to Hermione was to remind her that she was _extremely_ lucky to have made it to someplace that actually existed. After all, she might have landed beyond the earth's atmosphere, in the middle of outer space, and died for lack of oxygen. Other than that, and the hint that 'things happen for a reason', he was remarkably unhelpful and unresponsive.

It depressed her that Dumbledore really didn't seem to care if she got back to her own time or not, and his passivity left a bad taste in her mouth. She was thus disillusioned with the great wizard; she'd never seen this ambivalent side of him when she'd been the friend of Harry Potter. Now that she saw what face he showed to _unexceptional_ students, she understood why some found it so easy to dislike the wizard.

That being said, at least he made arrangements for her to blend into the Wizarding World of Spring 1976.

She was permitted to live at Hogwarts. Her cover story--for she was _not_ to inform _anyone_ of her time-displacement status--was that she was a foreign exchange student from Australia. During the summer months, Dumbledore promised to help her find a job that would allow her to take her own flat in London and also would spruce up her resume. In the meantime,

Since spring exams were near already, she'd just have to finish her fifth year over the summer in correspondence courses and pass her O.W.L.S. in late August, so she could take sixth year N.E.W.T. levels next year. Hermione didn't like the plan, but at least she wouldn't have to take fifth year exams for a few months.

She was instructed to simply go back to her studies, though it would be solitary for the time being. Dumbledore gave her a pass to audit classes if she liked and talk to professors, at least. Of course, she took up both offers adamantly.

Hermione was whisked away to spend a few dozen of Hogwarts' galleons on clothes, books, and other necessities. She missed Crookshanks, and McGonagall—who had taken rather a shining to Hermione—allowed the girl to pick out a new pet kitten, which came to be called Palsy because its tail twitched violently.

Being already a Gryffindor, as the Sorting Hat confirmed to Dumbledore when it graced Hermione's head, she was allowed to keep to the Gryffindor girls' dormitories. She was allotted a bed with the other fifth-year girls: Mary Macdonald, Dorcas Meadowes, Deborah Smith, Jenny Hazard, and Lily Evans.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . . 

Good evening, girls," greeted Professor McGonagall, standing primly before the fifth-year Gryffindor females. Hermione fidgeted as her new room-mates eyed her closely. While none of them appeared downright hostile during McGonagall's explanation of the situation, Hermione still felt alienated from them because of their investigative stance: they looked at her like a specimen to study, not a potential colleague.

"Please do understand that Miss Granger is a foreigner, so please, do not hesitate to educate her if she behaves a trifle unusually," concluded the professor gently.

 _I suppose that's my safety in case I do or say something that I couldn't do or say in the 1970s_ , Hermione acknowledged, feeling a bit put-out that McGonagall didn't trust her to blend in with the other students.

"And do, as I said before, make an effort to make her feel welcome. It's very scary coming to a new place to experience a new way of life."

Thus McGonagall finished her lecture, cajoled the girls into giving their names, bid adieu, and left the fresh carrion to the circling vultures.

"Is it true that Aussies never shave their legs?" demanded Jenny Hazard as soon as the door closed. "Because me brother said that, and he 'ad a friend who went there. Once."

"Isn't that the brother of yours who kept company with that bunch of beatniks?" scorned Mary, admonishing Jenny. "Then it's no wonder, 'cause I doubt 'im and 'is chums ever shave."

"Ladies! Let's not be rude to our new guest," reminded Deborah Smith, though Hermione caught a distinct note of disdain in the words _new guest_. "Tell us all about yourself, my dear. We're all ears." Her treacle voice made Hermione wary, and she immediately labeled the speaker as a _pompous wanna-be Slytherin._

"Well," Hermione said slowly, sitting down on the new bed that McGonagall had obtained for her, "I'm really not much. My parents are English, they're dentists who moved down south to start a new practice. But...well..." She paused, wondering how much to divulge to her audience, which was far from rapt.

Deborah Smith's expression reminded Hermione of Percy Weasley at his most prattish, smarmy and oozing in fake charms that made her stomach queasy. Smith had her hair done in a trendy style, just a smidgen less wild than Farrah Fawcett's waves, and she sported an enormous smile, exposing a very nice and white set of teeth. She was the only one who gave Hermione her full attention.

The curious whims of light blonde Jenny Hazard seemed fickle, for no longer was she interested in whether Aussies shaved their legs or not. Instead, her tanned fingers were wrapping and unwrapping the remains of a roll of brightly-colored string, and she seemed slothful and indifferent. So slothful, in fact, that Hermione was unsurprised when she caught a whiff of a sweet, smoky scent when the girl moved.

Dorcas Meadowes was the most awkward of the lot, with stringy brown hair and a significant belly. She wasn't interested in Hermione except marginally, gnawing on her nails as if she'd left dinner early. Hermione also noticed that she had a book folded up in her pocket— _Dr. Hegel's Guide to Self-Improvement—_ and she deduced that the girl was a Muggle-born, or at least a half-blood.

The red-haired Lily Evans looked like she'd seen better days, and the condition of her eyelids competed in color with her hair. She seemed very distracted, her eyes looking out the window and her fingers rubbing a small heart-shaped charm on a chain around her neck. Whereas the other girls seemed individualistic, she seemed inclined otherwise, and she and Mary appeared to be close friends.

Mary—girl of a harsh Manchester accent and a stern expression—gently massaged Lily's shoulder and brushed the knots in her friend's hair, her posture maternal but fiercely protective. Her clothes were the shabbiest of the bevy, and her hair was cut in a sad shaggy bob, but it obviously was not of major concern to her.

Of the company, Hermione decided she might like the latter two best; they exuded confidence and intelligence incomparable to the others, as well as a tight companionship that was like Harry and Ron's. Of course, Hermione remembered that Lily would eventually become Harry's mum--even if she had not recognized the name, the other girl's eyes were a blatant reminder.

Needless to say, it was a fairly creepy experience for the poor young time-traveling girl to realize that she was going to be sharing a room with her best friend's mum-- _before_ said mum ever got married!

"Well, Hermione," Deborah decided after the new student had given a few perfunctory details about her life and heritage, "I think you'll manage to fit in quite nicely. It may be very different for you, of course, but even though you _are_ a Muggle-born, _and_ an Australian, you'll be all right at Hogwarts, I daresay."

 _Prejudiced as well_ , Hermione judged, and nodded with fake amicability.

"Oi, you girls!" came a female voice from outside, "I've got something for Lily! Is she in there?"

"Yes," replied Mary before Lily's struggling lips could reply, "what is it?"

The door opened, and a third-year with glasses looked inside. "It's a note! From a boy!"

"What boy?" asked Deborah, her voice just a tad uncivil. "Not Potter?"

"No, not Potter," replied the young lady primly. "It's from that boy she hangs around all the time, that Snivellus character."

All eyes turned to Lily, and Hermione was shocked not only at the news but also at the diversity of the expressions.

_Wait, Professor Snape was friends with Harry's mum?_

She was dreadfully surprised, but she still couldn't miss the derision in the eyes of Deborah Smith, the pity in the eyes of Dorcas Meadowes, the amusement in the eyes of Jenny Hazard, and the exasperation in the eyes of Mary McDonald.

And the terror that came from Lily Evans as they all stared at her.

"But I thought you'd given up being chums with that nasty boy," Jenny blabbed impulsively.

"That's what you told all of us," Deborah agreed, distaste in her tone.

"She did," Mary said, defensive.

"So what's the letter say?" asked Dorcas, though she didn't really seem to care.

Lily was quiet. "I'll take it," she said, "though I can't say I will reply."

"You oughtn't read it," insisted Mary, a frown on her face as the third-year passed the letter on to the proper recipient and left. "It'll only make it harder to make a clean break of it, Lily."

"I know," she said softly, opening the letter, "but I can't let him just...oh my God."

Her eyes began to fill with tears as she looked at the page. "It's...oh my God, look at it!"

"It's got wet spots on it," observed Mary, her voice dry.

"Tears!" exclaimed Lily with a sob, and she fell into Mary's embrace. "Read it, Mary, you read it. I can't."

"I won't. It's yours, Lily." But her eyes were nonetheless running along the words, and her eyes were widening with interest.

Hermione was intrigued. _What does this all mean?_

However, the secret was not to be imparted to the ladies at large, because Mary rose and heaved Lily up from the floor. "Buck up, captain," she said, sounding a little scared, "we'll talk this out together, all right? Get up on the bed, that's a good lass."

She climbed onto the bed next to Lily, drawing the curtains of the four-poster closed, and soon Hermione couldn't hear their voices because of a faint buzzing in her ears.

"Sounds like a good idea, I think I'll turn in too," said Jenny, yawning comfortably and hopping onto her own bed.

Dorcas followed suit, though Deborah said she would lay awake to read a while. Hermione herself decided on bed, and soon she was enveloped in the warmth of the familiar Gryffindor bedding.

Settling into her new Hogwarts life was in theory quite easy, but Hermione realized that it would be hard to assimilate.


	5. Chapter 5

Awaking in the morning was a chore for Hermione, if only because she'd forgotten her terrible situation while asleep, and she was terrified anew when she opened her eyes and saw a pair of immature (but very tanned) breasts and a flat stomach looming over her.

"Mornin' Curly-Head," greeted Jenny Hazard, who seemed too chipper for someone who was walking around in nothing but her panties. "'Ave a nice trip to dream-land?"

"Erm..." Hermione muttered, closing her eyes again and hoping the apparition would disappear. She was intimidated at the idea that the other girl visited topless beaches on the Continent to get that nice, even coloration.

"Don't mind Jenny," came a voice in her other ear, and Hermione opened her eyes again to find Mary McDonald, still in her nightgown but happily covered from neck to ankle. "She's a little loony. Harmless, of course, but e'er since she started the reeking green tree joints, you won't find a sensible word out of her."

"Does she...parade around like that every morning?" Hermione asked, feeling uncomfortable indeed. She was a very reserved person and couldn't understand why anybody wouldn't be the same way.

"Sometimes she can't find her knickers, and then it's worse," Mary confessed, "but usually she's got this 'caftan' she wears in the mornings."

"All right," Hermione said, digesting the information, "thanks for telling me."

"I figured someone ought'a, and figured no one else would'a," Mary replied with a nod. "Now you go get cleaned up, and come down to breakfast with me and Lily, yeah? Wouldn' want you to be faced with The Claw, The Perv, or The Bloater. Not to say me and The Captain are altogether 'normal', you understand, but we're at least..." She didn't finish her sentence, shaking her head.

"I see," said Hermione with a nod, feeling thankful for any sort of welcome.

With that, Mary gave a curt military bow and departed, leaving Hermione to ruminate and dress.

Soon Hermione, Mary, and Lily were walking down the stairs to the Great Hall. Mary's attitude was consistent with what Hermione had heretofore seen of her, and Lily was looking better than she had the night prior. In particular, the two girls indigenous to 1976 were enjoying themselves, acting as tourguides of Hogwarts to their new foreign comrade.

"And there's the Fat Friar, whom you might call the patron ghost of the Hufflepuffs," informed Mary. "He's a nice fellow, though we can't figure out for the life of us why he's here."

"Yes we did," Lily interjected, her voice pleasant but determined. "We condemned him to the deadly sin of gluttony and over-indulgence. And the consequent guilt of his hypocrisy is what kept his shade on earth."

"Oh, you're right, Captain," Mary agreed, "I forgot. Though one _could_ argue that it was his barbaric sense of humor that the angels couldn't abide."

"But he's not nearly so bad as Nearly-Headless Nick in that respect," countered Lily, who then explained to Hermione, "That's our patron ghost of Gryffindor. Fat lot of good he does at representing us, though. All he does is whinge."

"I...believe it," Hermione said, biting her words just before she said 'I agree'.

"So tell us about yourself," Lily said, sounding less curious than she tried to be. Hermione had noticed already how the girl's fingers were caressing a folded piece of parchment, wrinkling it and unwrinkling it over and over.

"My parents are dentists...I'm Muggle-born, and proud of it..." Hermione began, starting with territory she'd already covered the night before.

"Oi, that's like our Lily here!" Mary said with a smile.

"I'm...very much into academics, love to read, and I study a lot."

"Lily, Lily, and Lily!" exclaimed Mary, her voice turning brighter. "And I can tell that you're modest, and that's Lily too."

Lily seemed to be ignoring how Mary was stressing the similarities between them, so Hermione took a cue from her to dismiss the claims. "That's all, really. I used to have a Kneazle."

"Lovely!" Lily said, "I prefer dogs."

At this point, they had reached the Great Hall. Mary and Hermione sat down right away, but Lily surreptitiously moved over to the Slytherin table on the opposite side of the room, then came back to join them.

"Go on," Mary said, shoveling a hunk of scrambled eggs on her plate. "Tell us more about you."

"I used to have an organization called S.P.E.W.," Hermione began, wondering if she'd have an audience for her propaganda. "Society for the Promotion of Elfish Warfare."

"You mean the house-elves?" Lily asked, her eyes lighting up with a mixture of suspicion and interest.

"Yes," Hermione replied, not sure what the response would be, but nonetheless continued. "Last year. I was attempting to liberate them, I knit them scarves and hats and things and tried to get them to pick them up. It wasn't as easy as I thought it'd be, because they always managed to avoid them, no matter where I laid them. I think I'd like to work to gain their emancipation when I'm older."

Lily's green eyes were as wide as saucers, and Mary began to laugh.

"This is bloody hilarious. Lily used to talk about the house-elves all the time. She couldn't bloody believe such things existed. She's toned down now, thank goodness, but now I'm afraid you two might just be a force to be reckoned with, you know?"

"I've never met anyone else who was interested," Lily said, her voice soft.

"So," Hermione said, deciding she'd had enough spotlight for the time, "tell me about yourselves."

"Well," Mary began, "I'm from the north of England. Parents are dead, died when I was rather young, and I was put in the English Wizarding Orphanage. That's where I grew up. I'm a half-blood, though honestly I don't think it matters much, and I like Quidditch, I like boys, I like studying war and weapons...my favorite subject is DADA, you know what that is? And I can't abide chocolate, and I've always wanted to visit China and Japan. Your turn, Lily."

The other girl sighed. "I think you've practically covered most of my interests already, Mary, though I would add that I'm a dab hand at potions, and I'm from London area, and I love the cinema."

"Funny, so do I," Hermione said without thinking. "I mean, my parents used to have a practice on Harley Street, and...well, I find that I'm naturally gifted in potions...and though I don't get to go often, I do love movies as well."

"Are you completely serious?" Lily asked, her eyes narrowing. Then she spun around and whispered something in Mary's ear. Hermione caught just one word: " _...uncanny!..._ "

Hermione couldn't put it any better than that. It _was_ uncanny how much she and Harry's mum were...alike.

She finished eating quickly and excused herself to go to the library, feeling awkward at how Lily and Mary were watching her every move.

Mary seemed more amused at the whole similarity thing, but Lily...well, Lily seemed more than a trifle unnerved.

Hermione was rather put-off herself.


	6. Chapter 6

When she arrived in the library, Hermione was surprised to see Severus Snape, occupying one corner to which she happened to be rather partial. She wasn't sure whether to approach or to go away, upon seeing him there, but she had already disturbed his reading and he was staring at her, so she ventured to go nearer.

"Hi," she greeted him warily, not at all sure how she should attack this particular problem. _Maybe he's different in this time._

She couldn't forget the letter that Lily had received from him last night that had made her cry because of the tear-stains on it.

 _Maybe the first war did something to him that made him really nasty_ , she thought to herself.

"Hello," he replied, his eyes going back to his book. As she searched him for evidence of distress that the letter implicated, she was surprised at how calm he seemed. _I wonder if he always was suffering...and just hid it very well?_ she wondered idly as she stood there.

But she just kept standing there, and he didn't seem to intend to extend any branch of friendship.

 _Well, I don't care_ , Hermione was thinking, preparing to leave. Then he put his book down, and she noticed that his face was taut, and his eyes were focused intently on her, as if he were trying to decipher her every thought.

 _Eerie_ , she decided, thoroughly creeped out, but then he spoke:

"I don't know who you are."

"And you think I know who _you_ are?" replied Hermione dispassionately, her irritation from breakfast surfacing and directing itself at him. Though, as soon as she said it she realized what she had said, she knew that it was quite a lie. _Well, I can't exactly lay out my history to anyone, especially someone as horrid as Snape. Even if I weren't forbidden...what if he used it against me?_

"I think you know more about me than I know about you," Severus Snape replied, completely unruffled. From his demeanor, one would never suspect that he'd been so emotional in front of her the day before; instead, he was treating her as if she were a total stranger. _In retrospect, all he did was take a tissue from me and say 'thanks' for it..._ Hermione mused.

"Why do you say that?" Hermione asked aloud.

"What do you want from me?" he countered, sitting rimrod-straight and sneering.

She shook her head. "Nothing. I don't really follow your logic, though."

He sat back in his chair. "Really. Must I elucidate? You helped me, Miss..."

"...Granger," she supplied primly.

"You were of some assistance to me, Miss Granger," he repeated, with perfect intonation, "and, moreover, you were kind. In my experience, such never come without certain expectations to follow. However, seeing as I don't know you, then I suppose you have connections to someone who _does_ know me. Otherwise, how would you know that I have anything to offer?"

"Wait a minute," Hermione replied, sitting down in the chair next to him, "you think I was being nice yesterday because I _want_ something from you?"

"Don't beat about the bush, Miss Granger. I don't like playing mind games with Gryffindors; your sort only thinks it can be tricky, and in the end only makes a fool of itself. Therefore, simply be blunt; it will save yourself embarrassment and myself a headache. And, since I presume that you want the services of my mind, it will be to your advantage that I _don't_ have a headache."

"I haven't the foggiest," replied Hermione, "what you're talking about. I guess if you think in terms of barter, you make some sense, but as for myself...I don't operate that way."

He seemed crestfallen. "So you really are just an oblivious oaf who happens to think herself a knight in shining armor," he scoffed.

"You could think of it that way, yes," Hermione replied, "but in _my_ world, Professor, that's called just being nice."

His eyes gleamed, though in delight or malice she couldn't tell. "'Professor?' Is that an example of your sterling sarcasm, Miss Granger?"

"I...oh!"

Her cheeks flushed, and he laughed.

"I see," he remarked scathingly, "that you consider all the world your classroom, and the men and women merely teachers."

"Far from it," she said, fuming, though she halfway wanted to laugh at his bastardization of Shakespeare. "Maybe a Hufflepuff scholar, but not me! One can't learn much at all from an idiot!"

"Indeed," Severus Snape replied silkily, "though that doesn't explain why you would call me 'Professor', does it?"

She sighed in exasperation and shook her head. "Maybe sometime I'll tell you, Professor," she said, though this latter time she was completely aware of herself calling him that. _I just can't call him Severus. Snape would be all right, but considering how many times over the years I've corrected the boys—' **Professor** Snape, Harry!'—I've got no choice. I've drilled the 'Professor' in, so well that I can't just let go of it._

"I'm definitely curious," he replied carefully. "Now, are you sure there isn't some favor you're after?"

She hesitated.

"Well," she said quietly, "I'd rather like this corner. It's my favorite."

He laughed bitterly. "I heard you were new here," Severus Snape said. "You're from Australia, aren't you? Came just yesterday?"

 _So, he knows **nothing** about me, eh? _Hermione thought with some amusement. _He's been putting me on._

"In that case," Snape continued, "I don't believe you've been here long enough to _have_ a 'favorite corner'. So no, I won't relinquish it. It happens to be _my_ 'favorite corner'."

 _I'm really terrible at this cover-story thing_ , Hermione regretted, but she shoved the thought away as irrelevant.

"Then how about we share it?" She _really_ didn't want to have to give it up, or wait until Snape left to use it; it was smack where the Potions and Arithmancy sections met, and those were the two areas for which she had to look up the most research.

He shrugged. "The table's big enough for two." With that, he moved his chair over and shoved some of the books he had open to the side.

It was thus that she began to have further interaction with Severus Snape.


	7. Chapter 7

On Hermione's second day at Hogwarts, she awoke to the heavy ambrosia of fresh flowers. She thought about poking her nose between the bedcurtains to look for the source of the odor, but as she lazed, she realized no one else was moving about yet, and when she glanced at her watch around the bedpost, she discovered that she'd awoken half an hour too early.

So, instead of rising, she remained in bed, wondering anew about her serious predicament and seriously wishing that something could be done about it.

Ronald, Ronald, Ronald. His visage was in her mind and his voice was in her heart all the time. Hermione had not hitherto realized the truth in the judgment that absence could 'make the heart grow fonder'. Now she did, and found herself in a hopeless emotional mire. She'd ceased already to go down the list of his faults, for she forgave him them all. If only doing so would bring her closer to him!

She felt like a little girl as she stuck her hand between the curtains, groped through the drawers of her bedside bureau, and withdrew her bulkiest, manliest maroon wool sweater, only to wrap it around a spare pillow and hug the arrangement close to her. Granted, it wasn't his sweater, and it didn't smell like him; she'd picked it out while shopping with McGonagall because it reminded her so of the ones he received from his mum. (Which he wore, despite himself.)

It wasn't really enough, for what material non-living objects could replace the intimate physical brush with another's life that a lover's embrace was? But it felt nice, and it was something.

And Hermione felt she was on the verge of tears, because she'd never, ever gotten the chance to hold Ron this way, ever. She'd given him hugs over the years, but nothing that indicated how much she felt for him, how much she cared. Moreover, as she explored her memories, trying to think of times when she had the chance and just didn't take it, she wondered if he would have responded in kind--or dumped her immediately, feeling too claustraphobic, too limited by her adoration. That was something she could see him doing, not being able to sort out how he felt about her immediately.

Or maybe it wouldn't even be an issue of sorting things out--maybe he just didn't like her in that way.

This is the crippling thought brought Hermione to her incoming tears. Her eyes turning glassy, she buried her face into the scratchy fabric of the sweater, telling herself that the wet spots from her eyes were not real tears, instead the kind that one got when exposed to too much light after being asleep, or the kind that one got when one was too sleepy to stay awake. At the same time, she knew she was pulling her own leg, because she knew that those kinds of tears did not accompany the intense, horrible feelings in the pit of her stomach and the tightness of her throat muscles.

I have to just get up and go about my day, she insisted, throwing the pillow and sweater to the foot of her bed, where it teetered briefly on the edge and then plummeted to the floor. Lily, who slept directly across from her, muttered something at the sound of the faint thud, and Hermione heard her stir awake.

Straighten up, go take a shower, time to get ready for the day, Hermione told herself, trying to shove her grief into the little box in her heart marked 'do not open'.

This was made easier by a distraction: she heard a shriek of surprise and disgust from Lily's part of the room.

"Mary! Mary, wake up!"

"Hmm?"

As Hermione grabbed her comb from the bureau and started to work its way through her bed-head mess, she listened with faint interest to the other girls' exchange.

"Mary, look at this!" Lily's voice was awed and yet almost horrified.

"It's enormous," replied the drowsy friend dispassionately.

"I know. It is enormous. Now who do you think it's from?"

Ah, that explains the flowers, Hermione thought, realizing they were probably talking about a bouquet.

Their voices dropped to whispers, but rose again quickly.

"So you haven't talked to him yet."

"No, I haven't."

"You really ought to."

Lily sighed. "I know, I know, I know. Ugh! Just...I will, all right?"

Mary's voice was serious. "I'm not trying to harangue you, Lily. It's your funeral if you don't make up with him. Probably his too, given the fact that he's so close to-"

"-Are you two in a conspiracy or something?" replied Lily in an antagonistic fashion. "Because white lilies certainly look like a funeral. It's the kind of flower that you put around a mausoleum, or on gravestones or something."

Quiet, Mary said, "You always told me you loved lilies. For years. Remember that conversation we had in first year about how I thought you'd hate lilies because of your name? I'm sure he knew that you loved them too. That's probably why he sent them."

Lily's voice was frigid, but it was becoming warmer as she calmed down. "All right, you win, Mary. I used to love lilies. I adored them. But not today. Today, I hate them, and I don't want to see them anymore."

There was a pause, and suddenly Hermione's curtain was jerked open. "Hey, Aussie," Lily greeted Hermione, tearing a handful of flowers out of the enormous bouquet in her arms, "here, have some."

"Who are they from?" Hermione asked, not hiding the fact that she'd been listening.

"A friend," Lily stated, and it was clear that the information was on a need-to-know basis only.

Hermione shrugged, taking the flowers she'd been given and spreading the wet stems out at the foot of her bed. They were simply lovely, and cast with preservative charms so that they would stay fresh for weeks.

"I think I'll wear one today," she mused aloud, snapping one pretty bud off its stem and trying out how it looked when placed behind her ear.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .


	8. Chapter 8

Everyone was relatively chipper at breakfast that morning. Lily had given flowers to all the girls in the dormitory, and Jenny, Deborah, Hermione, and Dorcas had spent time affixing them to their bedposts. Lily didn't want to see them or smell them, though, so they'd all invested in putting charms over their beds to prevent the smell and sight of the flowers. It was dreadfully silly, Hermione thought, but at least the productivity of the activity had cleared up her melancholy.

Deborah was lording over the girls, asserting how it'd been _her_ idea to use the certain charm that she deemed most effective in hiding the flowers. Jenny was chewing with her mouth open while she listened patiently to Deborah, her plate nearly clean. Dorcas was eating too many sweets, and received a scolding from Mary to put back her third pastry on pains of gaining back all the weight she'd lost last year. Lily was scribbling furiously, her eggs barely touched, out of tune with all the world.

Laying aside her fork, Hermione decided she wasn't hungry, and bid adieu to her housemates in favor of the company of books. The library beckoned to her, especially in her melancholy over the loss of Ronald Weasley. (At the Gryffindor table, she half-expected to see him shoveling food into his gullet every time she turned her head.)

Thus, she was occupying her (and Snape's) favorite corner when the dark wizard strode into the library, eyes fixated on an unopened letter and his lip curled in a frown.

"Hullo," she greeted, noncommittal, and Severus merely grunted in reply. He sat down heavily beside her, his thin frame proving surprisingly dense as the chair creaked beneath his weight.

"What'ch you got?" Hermione asked, though she was only marginally curious.

"Nothing." With a terse frown, he screwed up the letter and thrust it in his bag. His face was otherwise emotionless.

"Fine, be a secretive bugger," Hermione said absentmindedly. She wasn't really that interested, but she recognized that if it was something that captured his attention so avidly, it must be interesting. "I don't want to know anyway." In the back of her mind, she was hoping that he'd take the dismissive comment as bait for his ego and therefore rise to address her challenge. However, at the rolling of his eyes, she realized that he wasn't that stupid.

He got out a few books and parchment and a quill, and joined Hermione in work. For about an hour, they worked in silence, until Hermione rose and went to the bathroom.

When she returned and resumed her place next to him, she saw that his eyes were alight, though fathomless and impassive, and that he seemed captivated by her. Despite herself, she couldn't help but feel exhilarated at being _noticed._

 _Even if_ , she realized with a sqeamishness befitting the situation, _he used to be my teacher._

"What, do I have something on my face?" she demanded, fishing for a compliment, though she rationally knew that the likelihood of her receiving one from the likes of Severus Snape would be minimal.

He seemed to consider his answer carefully, leaning forward a little. She saw a hint of tongue swipe across his lips, shadowing them with saliva and its curious darkening properties; they became such a deep red that, contrasted against his pale lichen-colored skin, he looked frost-bitten.

"Not on your face," he said, one hand raising slowly, as if to caress her cheekbone. In her astonishment-- _What is he doing? Is he going to kiss me?_ \--she leaned back, her eyes wide, emitting a gasp of immense disgust and feeling her lungs heave with indignation. _He better not..._ she thought, her fingers slipping from the table to touch her wand in its side pocket.

Snape seemed unfazed, his eyes not lingering on her face but twitching along her jugular vein. Then, like a viper striking, his nails caught against her hair as he snatched the lily from behind Hermione's ear, where it had sagged (unremembered) all morning.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, his voice smooth but thinly concealing anger, like a paper screen that attempted to veil a burning inferno.

"My room-mate gave it to me," rasped Hermione. Her anxiety had ebbed, and now she began to put pieces of information together in her head.

_Lily got lilies this morning...they're flowers she's loved for a long time...someone who's known her a long time gave them to her...and that person is Snape? And yet they're estranged somehow...and she wants nothing to do with him...and that letter she was writing today...and the letter he was just holding...oh!_

She shouldn't have been such a dunce.

"Lily?" she heard him ask, and she heard the hurt in his tone.

"Erm..." She could crush him and say that Lily had, or sponsor false hopes and say something else... "She wanted to share," Hermione said, glossing over the truth.

"Mhm," came the stoic reply, and she couldn't tell if he was amused or didn't believe her. He said nothing else, crushing the flower in his fingers and placing the remains on the table. He turned back to his bookwork, and Hermione couldn't help but feel intense sympathy for Snape.

 _I...I think he's got a huge crush on her, if he's so upset over their estrangement that he sent her that bunch of her favorite flowers,_ Hermione began to hypothesize, _I wonder if this situation...well, it's pretty obvious that Lily would never go out with such a nasty Slytherin boy as Severus Snape...so I wonder if this situation is, in part, what made Snape the bitter man he was when he was our teacher.  
_

The idea that she had landed in the middle of a mess that would have such an impact on the man's future (as she perceived it) was fascinating.

_I guess they've been friends for a long time, but then sometime lately he made it so clear that he desires her as more than a friend, and she doesn't know how to reject him._ _When she rejects him, I...I guess it will destroy him._

Hermione then felt the mantle of responsibility settle upon her.

_I suppose I should help him. Maybe that's the reason that fate has dropped me here. What if I'm here to prevent him from going deranged and maybe destroying Hogwarts? Or even the world?_

She remembered how Dumbledore had suggested that 'things happen for a reason', and wondered if perhaps this was her 'reason'. Maybe, if she could prevent Snape from being completely heartbroken by Lily Evans' inevitable rejection...which she never doubted for an instance...well, there was no telling from what doom she might save him or the world.

Her better sense told her she was self-aggrandizing her own importance, but her better sense did not warn her against pitying Severus Snape.

"It's all right, you know," she told him, and he jerked his head up from his book in surprise. "You shouldn't lose hope of finding happiness just because _she_ doesn't want you."

She felt, with that pronouncement, as though she were emulating Luna Lovegood: penetrating, astute, and a touch clairvoyant.

For a moment, however, she felt incredibly stupid, because Snape's expression was one of bewilderment.

"What?"

Obviously her guess was off-mark...or so she thought.

"Who told you that?"

She'd mistaken his tense appearance for confusion, but too quickly it turned much uglier. A searing revulsion emerged on his visage, his sourness to the conjecture akin to the reaction of baking-soda and vinegar.

"I...presumed," she said, demure but a little frightened at the emotion on his face. "It's obvious from the flowers and the note you sent that you...fancy her...but it's also rather obvious that James Potter fancies her too." From there, she felt awkward, not wanting to outright acknowledge Snape's inferiority to the pureblood Gryffindor, but the implication was clear. "And honestly," she continued, feeling flustered, "why do you care so much?"

She realized that sounded callous, and so she opted to quell the fury she saw in his eyes with some well-placed sympathy. "She's...she's just one girl, Snape. There's plenty more to be had in the world. Why set your sights on someone so unobtainable? Why not look for someone with which you have more in common?"

With that, Severus Snape stood, his wiry strength emanating rage beyond comparison. Leaning forward with a sneer to rival all those of his adulthood, he questioned coldly: "Miss Granger, I _hope_ you'll excuse my ignorance, but _what_ business does a lecherous little lemur from Australia have with my affairs?"

"What?" She stood up too, feeling affronted that her condolences had been taken so badly. "I'm just trying to be nice, Snape!"

"Of _course_ you were, witch!" he spat, " _Nice_. And in return, a hilarious anecdote to take back to your little Aussie friends, 'I had a pity shag with the Hogwarts oddball'."

"What makes you think I want to _..._ to...do _anything_ with you?" exclaimed Hermione, horribly taken aback.

"Oh, only the fact that you've been _staring_ at me for the past half hour, the fact that you're poking your bushy head into my personal life, and, first and foremost, your little 'be nice to the wretched Slytherin' campaign. _Really_ , Miss Granger, do you think that I'm an _idiot?_ Even if I were...unsuccessful at wooing the attentions of Miss Evans, I wouldn't be interested in _you_. _"_

"I'm _not_ doing this to shag you, Severus Snape!" snapped Hermione. "Why can't you understand that? I'm not trying to seduce you or make you into a _laughing-stock_ , for crying out loud! I'm trying to _help_ you because no one else will!"

To her surprise, he laughed, but it was forced and mirthless. "I suppose," he said dispassionately, "that you're right about that. But that's no excuse," he went on, his anger rising again, "to _presume._ Not _every_ underdog needs your help, _Granger_."

"Fine!" she replied, "I won't interfere any more. I really am just trying to help you."

"And I want none of it, Granger. I keep my business private, and I'd appreciate if you didn't churn the rumor mill." Calming a bit, he added, "If your intentions are truly honorable, as you say they are, then I might be inclined to...compensate for your silence."

"You mean, you'd...pay me for keeping quiet?" Hermione said, frowning. "I've already told you, I don't operate that way, Snape. That's a Slytherin tactic."

He shrugged. "I didn't think it'd suffice. If you're determined to be so Gryffindor about it...would you give me your word not to divulge it?"

"What? Your affection for Lily?"

He looked shocked, spooked, llke a horse that shied from the truth.

"Yes...that."

"I promise not to tell," Hermione said.

He nodded, unable to say thank-you. With that, he seemed to fold up, like a bird with a broken wing, and said nothing more until Hermione packed up and left to go to her dormitory. She heard him sigh and, as she glanced back in concern, saw him break the seal of the letter with his thumbnail.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .


	9. Chapter 9

Much later that day, Hermione was done with reading for a while, and she lounged across the floor behind her bed, snuggling like a cat into the deep red carpet. Feeling warm and lazy in front of the fire, she opted against going to dinner, instead making the conscious decision to stretch and curl up amid her books. She felt cozy, nestled there, and her eyes soon drooped, and she stared into the fire. Her thoughts were haphazard, flitting from thought to thought in a hazy way like a moth faced with a room full of lovely candles.

The relative peace was disturbed by the callous throwing-open of a door, the pounding of running feet, the collapse of a body on a bed, and the sproinging of bedsprings.

Muddled by drowse, Hermione opened her eyes just barely. From her position on the floor, all she could see was a pair of feet on one bed closer to the door.

The ripping of a seal and the scuffing noise of parchment as it unfurled further cracked the silence, and Hermione moved one heavy arm to prop herself up for a better view.

There was quiet but heavy breathing, as though the intruder had run all the way upstairs. Balancing on her narrow hip, Hermione craned to see who it was.

Lily Evans. And she had a letter.

Thinking it better to make her presence known, Hermione sat up and swallowed her yawn. Lily didn't respond, however, so Hermione lay down again. The carpet was so inviting...

"Eee!"

Hermione opened her eyes once more, this time startled.

"Oh my god! Oh my god!"

Easing herself up to a sitting position, Hermione positioned her back against the corner-pole of her four-poster and looked at her giddy room-mate.

"Oh, Severus! Severus, Severus, Severus!" Lily was saying, and she scooped up a pillow from the head of her bed. "Oh, I knew you could do it. My poor friend!"

She was hugging the pillow tightly to her, her expression beatific and beautiful, and it was evident to Hermione that something wonderful had happened. That was very clear. As was, she noted with increasing chagrin, the fact that the situation was becoming more awkward by the minute, because Lily was apparently talking to herself in what she thought to be an empty room.

"Oh, you won't regret it!" Lily said, and Hermione was rather shocked when the other girl kissed the pillow. "I know you won't. I know it. Oh, Severus!"

There are many ways to describe tears, both those of joy and sadness, but Hermione couldn't quite decide on what trite metaphor to use. To look at Lily's wet face and glassy green eyes...Hermione knew that Lily was radiating a joy that was inexpressible.

A joy of which Hermione was immediately jealous.

"Severus. Severus! Severus. My best friend. You've come back." Lily's exultation was beginning to give Hermione a migraine. Whether it was from intense envy of the experience or rather if it was just because of Lily's own super-intensity, Hermione couldn't tell. The chorus was nauseating enough, but so was the rationalization of what just must have been in that letter, which lay discarded on the foot of Lily's bed.

 _He asked her out_ , Hermione thought gloomily, though she wasn't quite sure what it was that bothered her about the realization. _And for some reason she accepted._

Just as Hermione observed it, Lily gathered herself up in a ball, attempting to wrap her whole self around the pillow and suffocate it (or so it seemed). Her happiness was manifesting itself in a desire for closeness, and as Hermione watched the other girl crush the pillow to her breasts, she suddenly caught sight of the empty vase on the bed-side table.

_Or, wait._

No, that wasn't the solution. He'd sent flowers that morning, hadn't he? And Lily hadn't been pleased to get them. And then he'd been displeased to see that Lily had given them away.

 _Maybe those flowers weren't from him_ , Hermione thought, feeling glummer as she rolled over towards the fire. Lily was squealing like a rabbit being held by its hind legs, only hers was in ecstasy rather than unintelligible pain.

 _But I was certain at the time that they were...hm...what did she say this morning?_ Her nausea wasn't abating, but she was determined to find a solution despite it.

_She just said that they were from a friend she'd known for years._

Then the answer hit her.

_Why, James Potter!_

Hermione had completely forgotten about him. Obviously, the flowers _were_ from Potter, and she hated Potter. And, it seemed, she loved Snape. Or at least liked him a good deal.

For some reason, Hermione didn't understand that. _I thought she was supposed to like James Potter. Not Severus Snape._

A horrible feeling began to rise in her gut. What if her coming back from the future had an adverse affect on the relationships of the people of this time? By somehow just _being_ here did she make Lily like Snape and hate James? Or was this something she had no control over?

While she mused over the possibilities of this problem, and whether she was meant to play matchmaker and bring Lily and James together, Hermione heard Mary's voice at the open door.

"Lily? Where'd you tear off to?"

"I'm right here," Lily said, uncurling herself from around the pillow. Hermione hurriedly closed her eyes and feigned sleep.

"You wanna study charms yet? It's getting a bit late, you know."

"Um..."

There was a pause, and Hermione tried to make her breathing as even as possible.

"...Mary, I've promised to meet Severus."

"Oh!"

Hermione had expected horror, not the pleasant surprise she heard.

"That's wonderful, Captain. Ship-shape. What time?"

"A quarter-hour, he said. In the garden. Under our favorite tree." Lily's voice was tremulous with excitement, and she laughed softly. "I'm so happy, Mary. He...he said he would definitely give up on the Death Eaters."

"Then I suggest you clean yourself up, young lady. It wouldn't do for you to go out looking like you've been mourning." There was a clattering of drawers as hairbrushes and powders were duly put to good use by Lily's deft hands.

"You know, I think that I have been in mourning, Mary," the other girl said soberly, after a pause, "and been in mourning for much too long. And before there even ever was a funeral. But...I think he's out of danger now. The only problem was that he...wants to keep his friends. Which, I think I can convince him otherwise. There's other people he can be friends with."

There was nothing more than the sound of a brush being passed through Lily's hair for a moment. Then Mary replied, "Just be careful, Lily. Don't expect leaps and bounds, or a total reversal. I'm honestly surprised he's giving up his dream for the sake of your friendship..."

"What kind of a dream is it, to be part of such a...it's really nothing more than a _terrorist_ organization, Mary! And it's out for people like me!"

"Well...just talk to him, Lily, and be careful. And don't do anything rash. Just be cool, for once in your life."

Soon, the girls finished their preparations and left, leaving Hermione to the warmth of the fire and the tranquility of loneliness once more.

However, it just wasn't as cheerful as it had been before, so she crawled into her bed and went to sleep.

 _I don't care_ , she thought, and went to sleep with a smile because she knew it was true. _I don't care what they do. It's not my responsibility to make the future happen._

There was still a healthy amount of doubt as to this point, however.

Her sleep that night, and many nights thereafter, was fitful as she ruminated deeply about this.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Hermione entered the library, still drained by the confusion to which last night's ponderings had brought her. It being a Thursday, the last day before the Practical Potions O.W.L., she was anticipating that few people would be in the library proper--and that one person in particular, namely Snape, would be.

She didn't know what kind of conclusion he and Lily Evans had come to the night before, but Hermione regretted that she hadn't followed Lily to the rendez-vous and looked out for Snape's welfare. While she wasn't, by habit, an eavesdropper, she justified herself with the knowledge that it was necessary for her (self-appointed?) duty of protecting him. Her indolence the night before was an oversight she fully intended to correct.

So she made plans to find Snape, interrogate him as much as she could (without blowing her cover) and make sure that the wrong thing didn't happen. Which, she wasn't quite sure what the 'wrong thing' was, but she was eager to prevent Snape--no, _Severus_ \--from making the same mistakes that led him to become the bitter, surly man he'd made in her time.

She'd briefly mused about her role as she rushed through breakfast, paying no attention to the looks in askance from Jenny Hazard and Dorcas Meadowes, wondering for the first time in her life about guardian angels. She'd always been a self-proclaimed atheist and skeptic of all things supernatural (save where magic was concerned), but if all guardian angels were just normal people like her who had extra knowledge, she'd be more inclined to believe in the existence of miracles.

Anyhow, she hoped that she might subtly draw out information from the reluctant Severus as to what happened. Quite frankly, she was bloody irked at how little she had apparently known about the relationship between the two. It was highly important that she rectify said discrepancy.

However, her plans came to a screeching halt when she realized that Snape had some company now: Lily Evans was sitting in the seat that Hermione had so recently reclaimed for her own. Now the only seat remaining was too close to the nearby aisle, making her vulnerable to getting elbowed by other students as they passed. She had no intention of accepting this simply because Snape had a crush on the other girl, none whatsoever.

Lily was in a state of constant motion, periodically picking up a book from the multiple stacks of books that she and Snape had accumulated and glancing through it before returning back to what seemed a rather impressive collection of notes and jotting something down. All the while, she spewed out words at an impressively-rapid clip. "...and you know how Jenny is, Sev. She's practically throwing herself at Pettigrew, _Pettigrew_ of all people! I mean, if she keeps going through the guys at this rate, she'll be pregnant by seventh year..."

In contrast to Lily's frenzied movement, Hermione's former teacher moved at a much calmer rate of pace. He was an ice-covered lake to her tropical storm. Like his love interest, Snape was revising his notes in preparation for the O.W.L.s to come, but while he was performing the same actions, the feeling behind them seemed as different as night and day. Unlike his companion, he had noticed Hermione's presence. "Lily, there's a charm on the castle preventing that sort of thing, as you yourself mentioned to me. Also-"

Lily pouted, although she didn't take her nose out of her book as she continued, running over what her friend had been about to say, "I know, but-"

However, Hermione never had the chance to learn what was to come after that 'but', as Severus interrupted, "Lily, we have company."

Lily's head immediately jerked up, gazing about swiftly before her eyes locked onto the brunette observing the pair with an annoyed on her face. Blanching, the redhead stuttered out in embarrassment, "Err, nice to see you, H-Hermione. Having a nice day?"

Eyes narrowing, Hermione set her bag on the table brusquely.

"Absolutely _brilliant_ ," she said with a haughty sniff. The implications of _Lily_ sitting with Sn-(no, she reminded herself)- _Severus_ were clear. And Hermione did _not_ like what she saw. Lily was supposed to be fawning over _James Potter_ , not James Potter's worst enemy. More importantly though, Lily was in _her favorite seat._

The dark-haired boy looked to his red-haired companion, and their eyes met in a sort of _what's got HER knickers in a twist?_ glance. Apparently deciding to advance a rare demonstration of cordiality, Snape looked almost apologetic.

"What's the matter, Miss Granger?"

Wasn't it obvious what the matter was? Hermione felt like she'd had her throne usurped. Then again, Hermione remembered how dense boys (namely Harry and Ronald) could be concerning the wiles and whims of the female sex, and she realized that Snape probably attached no importance to the fact that Lily had taken her place.

"Oh...nothing," she said, her tone airy, "just looking forward to a bit of studying in my _favorite_ spot." The message, as she perceived it, was clear: _Lily's taken it! Get her out of here!_

"It's only been a week...and you already replaced me, Sev?" Lily's attention was turned to her friend, and her (as Hermione enviously noted) punctiliously-manicured eyebrows waggled in a jocular manner.

Snape, for the first time Hermione could ever recall, turned a little pink and muttered some indecipherable excuse in a tone that could only be described as obsequious.

"Never mind," Lily said, squeezing his arm in a consoling manner and regarding Hermione with some amount of--something. Interest? As one might be interested in an insect. Disdain? Not quite, there was no spite in her eyes. Confusion? A little, perhaps, but not consuming.

Then Hermione was suddenly reminded of a lioness; Lily was secure, prideful, and held an immense amount of power. And she regarded Hermione as a little lion cub who thought itself a threat. This marginalization, this belittlement, this condescension irritated Hermione. Lily's next words confirmed Hermione's impression of the other girl.

"But, I must ask," Lily stated with quiet command in her voice, "what do _you_ need to study for? There's only one O.W.L. left, and that's the Potions Practical tomorrow. And you're not even taking O.W.L.s until the end of summer, so you said."

"You're right, I'm not," Hermione replied, feeling sorry for Snape (poor bloke!). It was clear from his attitude--slumped against the back of the chair, his eyes steadily gazing at Lily--that he was so smitten by affection that he'd do anything for this girl. And Hermione was certain that Lily was _not_ above abusing her power over him. _I'll show her_ , Hermione thought, _I'll demonstrate my solidarity. I won't quail in her presence like poor Snape here._

It shocked her that she could think so malevolently of Harry's mum, but she reminded herself that _she won't be Harry's mum if I don't make sure that the Wrong Things don't happen in this time._

Thus she justified her defensive, almost hostile stance. "But that's only three months away," she continued hotly, sitting down in the empty (albeit non-ideal) seat, uninvited and without ceremony.

"And...you're starting _now?_ " Lily questioned, her green eyes non-aggressive but penetrating. "Sheesh, I guess if you _like_ studying, that's okay I guess."

Offended, Hermione pointed out the staggeringly large piles of books and notes surrounding the pair before crossing her arms and saying with an annoyed 'hmph'. "If one doesn't study, save for last-minute _cramming_ , it's doubtful that they would learn anything at all. To truly plumb the depths of one's mind, it is necessary to save time for studying, isn't that right, Professor Snape?"

Snape just shrugged, but Lily frowned. "First off, I like _practical experience_...not absorbing information from books. If one's truly interested in a subject, one should do their own work in the field, not just rely on what some old bearded bugger thought it was important to tell us in a book."

Taking affront at the fact that Snape was overshadowed--did Lily even give him a chance to respond on his own?--Hermione stated coldly, "I wasn't talking to _you_ , Lily, I was asking the _Professor_."

Lily's eyes widened at this, and Hermione wondered if she had made a mistake. Snape, who had grown accustomed to the nom de plume, didn't visibly react, except to open his mouth to speak. Lily, however, cut him off before he could say anything.

"I ask you so, Hermione--what's with this _Professor_ business?" Lily asked, looking perturbed for the first time in the conversation.  
 _  
Whoops._ Hermione hadn't thought about the fact that Lily was unaware of her nickname for Severus, and she realized that she'd probably made a mistake in emphasizing his 'title' in front of someone else. Snape seemed to accept it as a sign of...respect, or somesuch...but it was, she acknowledged, very odd. especially since it had only been a few days since she 'met' him. She just couldn't give it up though, after so long drilling it into Harry and Ron's heads; that would have just been too...strange.

"Uh, it's a nickname," replied the bushy-haired Gryffindor, scrambling for an excuse. "He's very intelligent, and I respect his mental capabilities immensely. I decided to call him professor because I see that he has the potential to be an..." She paused, realizing that adjectives that she normally associated with Snape as a teacher rarely were positive. "...excellent instructor."

Lily blinked, her mouth agape. "Severus? A _professor!_ Are you out of your bloody mind, Granger? Sev would _never_ be a teacher, not in a milion years! It's just absurd!"

This response surprised Hermione less than it ought to have. She knew Snape never really expressed any pleasure in teaching, but she'd always presumed that he had at least some choice in the matter of his career. Whether or not it was his first pick of a job, she would never know, but no man in his right mind would ever choose a profession he really, truly hated.

And so, rather brashly, she suggested: "Well then, _Evans_ , perhaps you don't know Snape very well."

A jarring silence resonated in the quiet of the library for several seconds, creating a dark tension throughout the room. Previously leaving the girls to speak to each other undisturbed, Severus then spoke, his voice frigid.

"Miss Granger...I do think that it would be best if you _left._ "

This was followed up by Lily's assertion, her eyes narrowed with anger, "Yeah, I think Sev is right. You should leave."

This rejection paralyzed Hermione. She was being directly told that her presence was not wanted, and she hated that. Especially because...well, she didn't want to say she was friends with Snape yet, but she certaily felt a sort of rapport between herself and him, built over the past few days, and she didn't like the idea that it could be treated in so cavalier a fashion. In hindsight, she could have handled the conversation better, but she didn't deserve this...did she?

Then in a moment she felt ashamed, and realized that she'd just criticized the woman that Snape--for better or for worse--seemed to adore. This made her more uncomfortable, and hence more irritable, and hence depressed at her own lack of tact.

"I..." She felt an apology rising in her throat, juxtaposed against the tears of self-pity stinging her eyes.

This was met by no response in the eyes of the pair opposite her.

"Goodbye," said Snape. He didn't sound angry or aggressive, instead indifferent, as though she were unworthy of his notice. His eyes glanced to meet Lily's, then down at his book. Not once did he regard Hermione.

With a tense clenching of the jaw, Hermione seized her bookbag and numbly walked away, not noticing the piercing glare of Lily's glassy green eyes following her as she left.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .


	11. Chapter 11

She didn't blame Snape for what happened in the library, which she found odd considering the circumstances of her exile. Her vindictive focus was instead on Lily.

There was some shame in hating the future holder of Harry's womb, but Hermione couldn't help but despise the woman. Why had James Potter married such a contrary, supercilious witch as Lily Evans?

Then Hermione remembered, with jarring accuracy, the dissonance between the fond memoirs of James left by the Marauders and the reality of his bullying of Snape.

 _I suppose they deserve each other, then_ , she pondered, but then she began to wonder how her world could have possibly ended up the way it had. Because she couldn't conceive, based on what she'd seen in this new era, how James Potter and Lily Evans might be so well remembered in her lifetime while Severus Snape was still reviled.

 _Then again_ , she recalled with annoyance, _did I ever get an opinion from an objective bystander of the time? A Ravenclaw of their year, or a Hufflepuff? Have I even talked to a single Slytherin who went to school with the Marauders around?_

There came to mind only Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, whom she'd met only once or twice, and she'd never had a proper conversation with them whatsoever. _Their son--Draco--does respect Snape, so it seems. Is it just because of the Slytherin bond, or is it something more?_

Thinking about it made her brain hurt in a way that didn't come from trying to remember the names and properties of all the pain-reducing herbs, or from trying to name all the monarchs of England. It hurt in the kind of way that she got when trying to figure out the potential reactions of adding the wrong ingredient into a potion. Her brain got numb, her ears started buzzing a little, and the focus of her vision became her nose.

Giving it up for a bad job, Hermione begrudgingly made her way to her bed and settled down on it to work. She hated to work horizontally, but if she sat straight she'd get arm pains from holding up her books, if she hunched over she'd get back pains, and laying on her stomach to work made her terribly sleepy, and gosh _darn_ it why didn't Hogwarts include desks in their rooms! She couldn't understand it, except maybe it was to prevent bookworms (like herself) from spending all day cooped up in the dormitories without socializing. Which, she admitted, was a fairly benign and practical plot, as much of a nuisance it was for her.

Granted, though she didn't allow herself the confession, the whole issue wasn't _really_ the pains in the arms or back, nor the falling-asleep or a wish to fulfill the most psychologically healthy thing to do. It was the fact that she had been _replaced._ Sure, Snape might _fancy_ Lily Evans, but did he really have to be second part of the old one-two punch and force her to leave like he had?

It was painful enough being abandoned, but it certainly smarted to know that she could be replaced, and so quickly too. _Still...I suppose that what he did might be 'excusable', as he does fancy the girl, and I wasn't doing a very good job at keeping calm. Besides,_ Hermione admitted to herself with a scowl, _it's not like I have anyone else I could call my friend at this point._

Suddenly, the door to the room opened with a high-pitched creaking noise and Dorcas Meadowes walked in, scowling at the offending entryway with a glare in her eyes and a mutter of 'Blasted door'. This comment was odd, juxtaposed as it was with the humming of a popular Weird Sisters refrain. Dorcas proceeded in an aimless fashion to her trunk, opened it, and started to change into a set of hideous yellow pajamas.

Hermione, feeling it best not to let her roommate know that she was out of sorts at the moment, decided to also begin her nightly ablutions and strode over to her own trunk. However, as she was about to slip out of her robes, she was interrupted by a soft _meow_. Apparently, Palsy felt that after nearly two days of neglect and inattention, it was time that she did something about it.

Turning to look into its small, scrunched-up little face, Hermione couldn't help herself from letting lose a sigh of exasperation, shaking her head ruefully. "Alright, Palsy, you can sit on my lap as we read together. Is that alright? I'm really sorry that I haven't been spending time with you, but I've just been so busy..."

The kitten let out a small _meow_ of apparent agreement and allowed Hermione to pick it up as the girl went over and sat on the edge of the bed. Pulling out the Arithmancy book that she had planned to read at the library, she buried herself in the book, scratching the top of Palsy's head absentmindedly.

Dorcas' eyes followed them both curiously, droplets of water dripping down her cheeks as she toweled off her face after spraying it with a bit of water from a quick charm. Finally, she commented in a quiet voice, "Your kitten is adorable. What's her name?"

" _His_ name," said Hermione, emphasizing the grey-haired kitten's proper gender. Still, she smiled kindly as she spoke, although she wasn't much interested in talking at this point at all or with Dorcas in particular. "is Palsy. He's a Russian Blue, and he really is adorable, isn't he? I got him because well...he reminded me of a dear...friend of mine because he's always so...enthusiastic." Hermione felt her cheeks warm as she said this, and she hoped that she wasn't being too obvious as to her feelings for Ron.

However, Dorcas apparently didn't miss the rapid pinkening of her cheeks, and she smirked mischievously. "Ah, that's some _friend_ now, isn't it?"

Hermione felt that the best course of denial would be to say nothing, but she still allowed an embarrassed grin to slip onto her face as she returned her attention to the kitten. As she scratched him behind the ears, Palsy started to purr contentedly and nuzzled her finger, causing Dorcas to let out an 'Aw...' at the sight.

The two girls then spent several minutes watching how the small kitten reacted when one or the other scratched it behind its ears, on the neck, on the back, or on its belly. Palsy loved the attention, purring up a storm and looking up at each of the two girls adoringly whenever they touched him. As she did so, she felt a bit of the tension in regards to the confrontation with Snape and Li...Evans fade away, as really it was just a minor incident in the great scheme of things.

Still, Hermione remained silent in regards to the Ron situation, not really wanting to discuss him; in addition to the fact that it was _so_ embarrassing to talk about, there was the added danger of revealing something that would let the other girl know she was from the future, something that Headmaster Dumbledore had expressly forbade.

Finally, Dorcas spoke up, idly curling some of her stringy brown hair around her finger as she giggled. "Well, you don't need to worry; your secret's safe with me. I know what it's like to like someone who doesn't really notice you." She leaned back on Hermione's bed, talking up towards the ceiling, her face red. "The guy I like probably doesn't even have the slightest idea how I feel about him; I mean, I make a point to hang around with him all the time, doing stuff with him when he's not busy with his other friends...but I don't know if he notices any of it. He's not the most brave or confident of fellows, probably why he spends all his time with Potter's gang, but he can be really sweet and kind when he's not around them."

Dorcas looked up at Hermione and smiled, an embarrassed smile lighting up her face. "Every Tuesday and Thursday though, before classes, we make a point to do the Daily Prophet's cross-words together. And sometimes he even reads me poetry, although it's probably just because James needs all the help he can get when it comes to Lily, you know? So you see, your secret's safe with me."

As the other girl returned to her bed, drawing the curtains around her, Hermione smiled. If anything, she was jealous of Dorcas, as the girl got the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with the boy she was clearly utterly smitten with. _Doing cross-words together...not really my thing, but I'm sure that it would be fun for a lot of people, especially with those they love._ thought Hermione to herself fondly. _I'd sure like to do something like that with Ron, not cross-words of course, those are silly, but something like...something like...well, we could snog I suppose, but what else?_

She frowned, brow furrowing, troubled that she wasn't quite able to picture doing anything _with_ Ron, just alongside him. _Well, I guess that we'd just do something that the two of us both like to do, something we both have in common. I mean, how hard could that be? We have all sorts of stuff in common, like..._

 _Something like..._ Hermione's frown deepened. _Something like... What do we have in common?_


	12. Chapter 12

Sometimes the mild inconvenience of getting her head caught in the neck of a sweater reminded Hermione of the more basic things in life. Looking at the thousands of little fibers, all strung together in the unified purpose of keeping one strong thread of yarn together. That one thread of yarn, of course, being one of a few hundred in the sweater she was wearing. The individual parts joined in a union her measly little body warm, and Hermione was immediately grateful for their cooperation.

She wondered, with some self-righteousness, whether lots of people thanked the individual threads of their sweaters for serving them, as silly a thought as it might be. Despite allowing this superior train of thought glow for a few minutes as she finished dressing, Hermione acknowledged her fall from the latitude of moral correctness and immediately sought a remedy. As was her usual cure for haughty thinking, Hermione began to assess her own failings in the same context.

She'd been a complete mess when it came to S.P.E.W., of course; it had been her biggest endeavor to organize anybody, for any non-social, productive purpose. And when it came to social purposes--making friends--well, she couldn't say she had succeeded very much at getting on with her classmates or housemates. Harry and Ron being _the_ only exception. She just grated on people in general--girls looked down on her for what they perceived as a condescending attitude (she couldn't figure out how intelligent comments like 'can you explain to me clearly why you wear cosmetic charms when they only make you look fake' ruffled their feathers), and boys avoided her for the intimidation/no good looks factor (though the latter wasn't a concern in her books, admittedly she had tried to tone down her swotiness significantly, except in class).

Continuing to brood as she strode through the Gryffindor Common Room, barely noticing James Potter plotting with Sirius for their pranks of the day, she admitted to herself that she probably wouldn't have _any_ friends at all if it weren't for Harry's bravery that day with the troll in the girl's bathroom. Her mind began to wander as to her unity with Harry and Ronald, as friends and, in the latter case, something more...

Ronald. She wondered whether their unity had blinded her to the distance between the people they were, just like how the seperate threads were bound together but not one cogent whole. Was their only connection a similar purpose, a similar aim?

Hermione had long ago dealt with the demons that had concerned her about a relationship with Ron: whether he liked her or not (taken care of long ago), whether he could keep up with her mighty brain (surprisingly, this wasn't as bad as she had worried, as although Ron would never be an academic genius, he was plenty clever in his own right), and whether or not he had an actual emotional sensitiveness in his body (well, that might have taken a bit longer for her anxiety on _that_ point to die). However, she had spent so much time trying to find a way past the obstacles that she had never really considered what they would do once they were _together_.

_I mean, there's only so much one can do after snogging, isn't there?_

Hermione twitched.

_There is...shagging, also, I suppose, I guess..._

The idea made her deucedly uncomfortable, as although she was fairly certain that the physical part of the relationship would be something she would enjoy avidly...the idea of that being the sum of their relationship was rather off-putting.

_And...I guess what you could say we do together now is Help Harry._

That was the crux of the matter. They didn't really do anything productive _together_ , just for the reason of doing it. They were always employed as support for the person that featured as one of the mutual major figures in their lives. They were like two rings on a Venn Diagram: two disparate beings that overlapped at a certain place, and the third being that they shared was another being that was both part of them and separate from them.

Which led to the obvious and scary question: _would Ron and I actually have anything resembling a real relationship?_

The immediate and necessary thing to think about was whether any other happy, successful couple she knew of had a similar problem of nothing-bonding-them-together. Hermione couldn't really think of any, a thought that had her mind racing with terror; what if, for all her attempts to hint Ron into wooing her, she had been missing the point the entire time, said point being the fact that she and Ron had no bloody futu-

Suddenly, her continued contemplations were forcibly interrupted by an unexpected collision with a vaguely-recognizable figure which had come striding out of a nearby classroom.

"Professor!"

That's all she could say before he went to the ground.

"Miss Granger," hissed the young man with a soft voice, belied with no small annoyance whilst his eyes narrowed. "Might I ask what you were doing? Were you so intent in reaching the library that you decided to bowl over everyone you _encountered_?" Thus condemning her, he sighed and rose to his feet again.

Stuttering, Hermione tried to apologize, "S-sorry, Professor, I didn't mean for it to h-happen. I was just...I needed to..." She stumbled over her own words as she tried to explain without _truly_ explaining how she was feeling. The inner conflict about Ron, the outer conflict (she already had classified her current interaction as a 'conflict') with Snape...she just knew she couldn't take it all. Something was going to snap.

_Funny, you would think that if one was conflicted inside and conflicted outside, one might be at peace with the world because everything is balanced, just like how one might expect not to feel a hot day at 36 degrees because one's body is 36 degrees so one shouldn't be able to feel the heat..._

"Please, when you have regained your capacity to speak English, do tell me what you are trying to say," said Snape smoothly, shaking his head with disdain as the other students streamed past.

"I..."

Then the dam burst.

"I-I-I ca-aaan't," Hermione gasped in great sobs. "I'm just so... _stupid_ , I'm no good at all, no good. And I can't even get what I want, and everything's just so _difficult._ And I've not been doing _nearly_ enough revision so far, especially considering that I've got my tests so much earlier than I expected this year, and it's all just so _difficult_ and so _nasty_ and I...I really wish I could go home..."

To accentuate her distress, she had her hands to her face, and she felt her fingernails clenching at her flesh. _Flaccid flesh_ , she inwardly commented, _flabby flesh. I'm fat and stupid and no good at all, and I just want to go home and cry and tell my mum, but I can't go home, and I just miss my mum._

"You're just goddamn spoiled, that's what," was Snape's terse response.

This made Hermione perk up in her own defense. "What? I'm not spoiled!" she insisted, shoving away her tears with the hem of her sleeve to be unpacked and analyzed later, like one might with trinkets after being suddenly and violently evicted.

"Yes, you most _certainly_ are," Snape said, quite severe and immovable on the point. "And what's more, you're homesick. That's all. So go home, then. Go. It's not like I know what you feel like," he added, probably more to himself than to her.

Hermione softened a bit. "What do you mean by _that?_ " she inquired a little rudely, her own angst forgotten.

"Nothing whatsoever," Snape bit out, too defensive to be believable. "I don't mean anything by it."

"Well, in _that_ case," Hermione stated, getting just as defensive, "you might as well know that I _don't_ have a home. And that's the reason I'm here. My parents are...as good as dead, my friends and family are all gone, and the chances of seeing them again are really small." It was all practically true, of course, though she hoped the _really small_ part wasn't.

This confession, however, seemed the opening that Snape needed to admit a few things of his own.

"You...you're lucky," he said, trying to come off as cavalier, but it was clear that he was moved.

Not wanting to lose an opportunity, Hermione grabbed Snape's shoulder and spun him into the nearest alcove.

"You're going to explain how...how assassins killing off everyone who's important to me means I'm _lucky_?"

The 'reason' for her bereavement was very impromptu, but Hermione hoped the total effect would startle something secret out of him, like one might kick a free soda out of a fickle vending machine.

She was wrong in this, however; Severus Snape was not someone who dispensed free sodas to anyone who inquired.

"You are," he maintained, but clammed up.

"Go on! Come on, what were you going to say?" Hermione demanded, shaking him still in the hopes of him spitting out his heart.

Then he snarled. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger."

It was so jarring to hear him say it--unsurely, but still without remorse--that Hermione let go. Was it his first time in his young life to say such words? She supposed so, or at least one of the first times. For a moment, while she felt herself bridging to the old and familiar through means that were so new, she wondered if she might enter a time warp because of his saying it just like he might say it to her in her own time. She half-expected something like Aladdin's magic carpet to pick her up and whisk her away back to her homeland now that some strange spell had been broken.

But she didn't, if only because Snape took advantage of her confusion to slip away and skulk in the shadows. He was almost out of sight when he was suddenly joined by a girl with beautiful red hair. Lily.

Hermione still couldn't decide whether Snape had been trying to truly insult her or just make a getaway from her 'intervention', so she watched them from where he'd left her. What were his intentions with that deduction of points? It wasn't real of course, so why had he done it?

As she watched, she decided that Snape's entire air seemed to lack confidence, his shoulders hunched forward and his hands in his pockets. Even when he conversed with Lily, he didn't look up at the girl he was supposedly in love with very much while Hermione watched. Meanwhile, Lily just grinned at him, placing one of her (overly-delicate, in Hermione's opinion) hands on his shoulder as they talked. She seemed to feign camaraderie, but Hermione could tell the truth by seeing how Severus failed to respond in kind, not even perking up as Lily gave his arm a squeeze.

She wondered how it compared to when she was with Ron, as she could easily see some parallels. Ron was a difficult soul, as Snape was, and often she didn't get along well with him due to their differences. Their case seemed to be similar to that of Snape and Lily. The pair clearly had a _great_ many differences...although not half as many as she herself had with Ron...and it seemed that they had some sort of friendship as well, perhaps a strong one. _Of course, Ron always seemed to respect me, while Lily seems to look down on Snape. I mean, him not being able to be a teacher? What a lot of rot._

As she watched, Snape and Lily turned together and headed back down the hallway, the former with his head down and the latter with her head high.

Not wanting to follow too close behind them, Hermione squated where she was in the hall, drawing her arms around herself and sighing. She did miss Ron, even if she and he weren't so...perfect as she'd always thought they'd be.

 _Maybe it'll be different when I get back_ , she thought, feeling her hope ebbing. The need to boost herself with deception rose in the back of her mind, and she began to spew more inane platitudes, all the while acknowledging their falseness. _He does love me, I know it, it just never occurred to us to say anything because of the Mutual Understanding between us. Yes, that's it. We have always known we were in love with each other, and it's impossible that anyone ever thought otherwise. Viktor Krum? Didn't mean a **thing**_ _to me..._

While thus engrossed, she didn't notice Lily approaching until the other girl poked her head into her alcove.

"Hi...erm...Granger?"

"Hi," answered Hermione, morose of mien.

"Hey...what are you doing?"

Hermione debated what to say, before finally replying with an articulate shrug.

Lily responded by saying, with a nice smile, "Well, I was thinking that maybe the two of us got off badly yesterday, and I was hoping that we could take another shot at it. It's just..." She chuckled, shaking her head. "...even before his stupid 'Death Eater' ideas got the better of him, Severus never had the slightest interest in teaching. He'd be horrible at it, we all know that, and he'd much rather be in something like...I don't know, researching."

"And that wouldn't be a bad place for him, in my opinion," Hermione said, still obstinate on her point. "He's brilliant, and, quite frankly, it'd be a right shame if he couldn't have the chance to impress young minds with his knowledge and talents. He'd be a great teacher if he put his mind to it."

"That doesn't mean that he _wants_ to put his mind to it," Lily insisted, her jaw firm as she spoke with determination.

"How do you _know?_ " Hermione retorted, her hands on her hips. "Have you even asked _his_ opinion on this subject?"

"Of course I would know! He's my dearest and best friend!" answered Lily, looking quite cross by now, her eyes narrowed. "He wouldn't be suited for a job as a teacher, and this is getting really stupid. We've talked this topic to death already!"

 _Ooh, she's neglected to admit that she didn't ask Snape's own opinion_ , Hermione thought with some gloating. _Such a friend she is, thinking so low of Snape._

"Well, I bet that I know better," Hermione insisted. "Sorry, not to sound arrogant, but I'm sure that of the two of us, I'm the better potions mistress. And that definitely both Professor Snape _and_ myself would get top of the class on our O.W.L.s, and better than you besides."

"Is _that_ so?" The challenge was well met by Lily, and she laughed lowly, shaking her head. "I wouldn't doubt that Severus could beat me in Potions...well, some days....but I don't think that you could pull it off. Sorry, not to sound arrogant, but I'm sure that I'm the superior potions mistress."

"Do you want to make a wager?" Hermione proposed, a determined look upon her face.

"How vulgar," Lily replied, sticking out her tongue in disgust. "Besides, I've already taken my O.W.L.s today. It wouldn't be fair to make a wager now. Still, I suppose if you can beat my own score...well, let's just wait and see."

 _She just as good as accepted_ , Hermione decided, feeling triumphant.

"Yes, I daresay we'll just wait and see," she replied in turn, smiling with the self-assurance that the clock face on a time-bomb might have. Unable to resist gloating. "And I daresay you'll have some admissions to make as well."

At this, Lily rolled her eyes as she walked away, throwing her hands in the air with annoyed frustration, muttering just loudly enough for Hermione to hear, "Mental, she's completely mental."

At this, Hermione's grin widened. Lily had no idea what was in store for her--there was a reason she was the best in every class, after all.


	13. Chapter 13

The time for leaving Hogwarts drew near. Seventh-year students had their graduation ceremony, which Hermione shunned out of disinterest, and then everyone packed up their bags to go home.

Everyone, of course, excepting Hermione.

It was finalized with Dumbledore; she would be staying the duration of the summer at Hogwarts.

"It shouldn't be too terrible," he promised, serene as usual, "and in fact, you in particular, Hermione, might enjoy the festivities."

The festivities being, to Hermione's surprise, an academic symposium.

"Scholars from all over the world attend the Hogpath Research Symposium," he explained without the slightest hint of dignity. Hermione even supposed that he sounded a bit like he mocked the event. "It's _truly_ magnificent. Do you consider yourself an academic, Miss Granger?"

Hermione noted that she did indeed consider herself such.

"Then you should enjoy the lectures and workshops very much," Dumbledore said, in a manner that Hermione found comfortably conciliatory. "Perhaps they shall contribute to your O.W.L. studies."

It was true that Hermione was increasingly anxious about her O.W.L.s. What if she failed something that she didn't devote enough study to, what if she got a T on something? Or worse, what if she got all E's because she didn't study enough in general, or was generally incompetent? This fear was not irrational, it was just...

(Well, maybe it was a _bit_ irrational.)

Still, she felt herself quite torn indeed, forced to choose between her love of pure academia and that of needing to get good grades... _and beat Lily Evans at Potions_. Hermione reminded herself sternly. For once, it was about even more than her unending thirst to prove herself, it was about her _need_ to defeat the one who would replace her. It was an odd thought, as really Snape was just another boy in this time-line, but Hermione clung to the last reminder of her former past with a ferocious determination.

As such, she was about to politely reject the headmaster's offer when he said in an offhand sort of way, his blue eyes twinkling, "Oh, and Mr. Chode Littles, a noted scholar who works at the Wizarding Library of Edinburgh. He is planning to give a brief lecture on the study of time-travel, a particular favorite subject of his. Perhaps you would care to see him?"

Hermione's eyes widened, and she couldn't agree fast enough, her head bobbing like an eager lamb. "Yes, Professor Dumbledore. I'll gladly stop by! If it's not too much trouble to accommodate me, that is."

And as such, in addition to her nigh-endless studying, Hermione spent each day breathless in anticipation for the arrival of Mr. Littles' lecture. As much as she might want to defeat a certain red-headed girl, she'd give it all away just to see Harry and Ron again. _Ron..._

But she refused to think of Ron. Or Harry. Or anything except the task ahead of her. She had to succeed, and there would be no distractions.

No distractions meant _no boys_. Not even boys who might have been a help to her studies, like Severus Snape.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .  
Being holed up in her room (and the library) for weeks on end made Hermione lose all notions of time, save for the knowledge that two exceptional dates existed in the near-future. July 26th through the 31st was the research conference, and on August 2nd through 6th were her O.W.L.s.

 _Of course it would follow that the conference would immediately preclude the examinations_ , she grumbled to herself numerous times over the weeks prior. At least Little's discussion was on Friday the 30th, giving her two days of uninterrupted study before her first test.

Over the course of the two months between the other students' departure and the conference, Hermione devoted barely any time to thinking about home. At night she occasionally lusted after Ron, and sometimes she felt so depressed that she wished that she might talk to Harry and cry on his shoulder, but other than these feelings she managed to maintain her own focus on her studies. It was frustrating, lonely, and tiring, but still she pursued her goal with the dogged determination and stubbornness that had qualified her for Gryffindor. Even more rarely still did she think about Going Home; she put a hold on that priority until she had some more answers from the Hogpath lecture. Once the O.W.L.s were over and she was safely and academically settled in the new world, she could begin the nearly-impossible process of preparing to go home. But some things were more important for the time being.

The conference arrived much sooner than Hermione expected, to her great displeasure. Some of the student dorms were allocated to teachers and lecturers from around the world, and it was immensely distracting to Hermione to have so many academics milling about while she was trying the study. The library was, understandably, a very popular venue for the conference attendees, and became comparable to the common room in activity and chatter.

Still, Hermione managed to put blinders on for the majority of the week, moving as infrequently as possible from her own dormroom, which was thankfully not entertaining any conference attendees but herself.

The 30th found Hermione both sleep-deprived and hyper-emotional after a long week of super-studying. It was Friday, so she had promised herself that she'd get (gasp!) seven hours of sleep that night, since she'd been subsisting on three or four and was feeling the aftereffects acutely.

However, that didn't mean that she wasn't in the room of Little's conference presentation half an hour early, poring over Arithmancy notes and also fingering her Potions textbook as though to derive its information via telekinesis.

"What are you studying so intently?"

A plump old man with a neatly-trimmed gray beard and boxy glasses entered the room, placing a dingy briefcase on the center table.

"Arithmancy and Potions," Hermione replied, her response snappy and automatic.

"Are you taking the O.W.L.s on extension?" he asked, pleasant but curious.

"Rather," she said, then added shortly, "but I'm an Extenuating Exception." There was a vast difference, of course, between Extenuating Exception students and Required Revision students. The latter, of course, were those who had simply done so poorly on their O.W.L.s prior to the examinations that the school was mandated by the Ministry to give them one more shot at the tests, with a permanent record of 'R.R.' on their scores. E.E. students, on the contrary, had no blasphemous mark on their permanent records. As Dumbledore told her, there were four R.R. students that year, and two E.E. students, including Hermione.

"Ah, I'm sorry," he apologized, satisfied with her response.

Ten minutes later, people began to file into the classroom, and Hermione began to realize that the stocky little man she'd addressed so rudely was probably the lecturer in question. He was in the process of shredding a piece of paper in his hands, nodding his head in little jerks towards the people who greeted him.

Finally, clearing his throat and shuffling a bunch of crinkled parchments self-consciously, he tried to get the attention of the populace.

"Erm, hullo to you all," he began, and Hermione reluctantly laid down her papers. She was rather inclined to leave at this point, seeing the unprofessional attitude that Littles seemed to have and not being very impressed by it.

"I'm really very glad to be here, as you might imagine...simply tickled pink, you might say..."

He began to babble about what an honor it as to be there, which bored Hermione to death. She continued her revising without paying him much attention.

"...Everyone like the lunch today?"

This question irritated Hermione, who was reminded of how hungry she was (after skipping the aforementioned lunch), and she began to shuffle her notes together. Her inclination was to leave, in spite of how important the topic was to her.

"Reminds me of the years we spent here at Hogwarts, eh Weatherby?" he addressed an audience-member cordially, and Hermione thrust her hand in the air.

"Excuse me, sir," she said, barely able to keep herself from snarling with indignation, "but might we get to the topic?"

"Oh, of course, now then..."

However, even as Hermione tried her best to pay attention, giving the man's lecture the same sort of attention that she would give Professor Snape or Professor McGonagall's instructions in class, she found her normally-strict focus had been compromised by exhaustion. Her eyelids began to droop, and not because of the lecture itself--Ron had once said that if Voldemort sent his entire army into Potions class, she'd still keep her eyes on the blackboard as they fought-- but because she simply couldn't manage to stay awake.

As such, she soon dropped off to sleep, but not before hearing one terrible phrase, camouflaged with hypotheticals and the theories of academia:

_"...I suppose the most clear way of explaining this phenomenon is that Time is like a tree, really. As such, if we change the past too much, such that our future is no longer possible, we are no longer able to return to it by any means. If we slide back onto the trunk, and climb onto a different branch of time, then there is no link between the new reality and our former future, much like how there nothing but air between the tip of a branch and the original trunk..."_

Even as she slipped into a world of dreams, Hermione couldn't help but feel a tragic sense of loss at his smiling pronouncement, as it meant that her chances of seeing Ron or Harry again (without being old enough to be their mothers) were most likely _zero_.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Hermione spent the next several days pouring herself into her work, although this time she made sure to get enough sleep--it wouldn't do for her to fall asleep during the middle of an exam after all. In spite of the fact that she had no teachers to do demonstrations, she wasn't unduly hampered, as she had always been one of the best book-learners of her class. Even better, she had no-one around to hamper her--a very good thing, as she very much doubted that Harry or Ron would have been willing to let her go undisturbed when the last minute to study arrived.

Still, even though she was working as hard as she possibly could, she was very aware that she was using this as a distraction. There were certain things that she would rather not contemplate...such as that revelation from Littles' lecture.

The problem wasn't that she believed him _entirely_ , per se, but rather the fact that if she went and looked up the data that he had draw his opinion from, there would be no possible denying that there would be an unbreachable wall between the now and the world she had always known. If Littles were right...then in all likelihood, she might have already changed things too much for her future to be regained. Hermione just wasn't ready to face that, so she buried herself into her studies in the last few hours prior to her O.W.L.s with an effort that she hadn't mustered since third year exams.

This paid many dividends; she could tell that she had made Outstandings on most of her O.W.L.s, save for in Defense the Dark Arts.

However, she took the most pride in her last practical exam in Potions performance. (For her, the written exam was a joke, as it would be to anyone who took the time to read the textbook. Albeit, she _had_ read it no less than fifty times.)

She brewed every single potion to perfection, having memorized the entire textbook beforehand in her last, supreme effort of studying; even Snape himself would probably have a rather difficult time trying to replicate her feats. Every ingredient was chopped, sliced or diced to exaction, every stroke of the potion was smooth and seamless and every potion came out exactly as the textbook described.

Her examiner wasn't the same one who had proctored the rest of the Hogwarts students, because, as the jovial academic explained, his superior was _en vacance_ in France for the month, and had left him in charge. Even so, he had the look of someone well-versed in the art of Potions, and Hermione took pride in how she was able to impress the man. He was in a visible state of awe as he watched her from his seat at what she still thought privately of as 'Professor Snape's desk'. When she turned over the samples for each of her potions, he would look at them in wonderment, his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

She turned in the last sample, sweaty but with a satisfied grin on her face as the proctor lifted it up and turned it around, looking it from all sides. Hermione couldn't help but to bite her lip, although she was supremely confident in her performance.

Finally, the man turned at her and gave her an impressed smile as he said, "My dear, you've done superbly; I can hardly imagine what doors might be open for Hogwarts students if you are a representative of their talent!" Lowering his voice, the man put a hand on her shoulder as he continued, "I shouldn't be telling you this, but you've gotten one-hundred-and-five percent if you've gotten ten. Well done, girl!"

Hermione's grin widened as she imagined what Snape and Lily's reaction would be when they discovered this. For some reason, Littles' lecture seemed trivial in comparison to her outsmarting of Harry's hoity-toity mother...

She could hardly wait to rub Lily Evans' too-perfect nose in it!


	14. Chapter 14

Soon enough, the other students returned to Hogwarts with smiles on most of their faces, despite the inevitable groans of the older years. The summer had made their brains nice and empty, just as Dumbledore liked, and the students came back with redoubled enthusiasm and pledges to study even harder that year.

Hermione felt jaded as she regarded a stolid fourth-year Hufflepuff claim that she'd try for straight Os this year, "never get another E". _It's harder than you think, sweetheart_ , Hermione thought to herself. She wasn't in this melancholy vein out of anxiety; while she was about to confront Lily Evans (and maybe even Severus Snape) with her stellar O.W.L. score, she wasn't worried about having won the wager. Indeed, she didn't quite know why she might be disturbed at all. She should have been totally exultant. The idea that she had been indubitably victorious over Lily did fill her with a kind of jubilation, but it was tempered by some other mood.

_Maybe I've just become attuned to the loneliness that the summer afforded,_ she thought, and then she realized that probably that was the problem. _I do remember being overwhelmed this time last year_ _by all the people._ She refused to think about Harry and Ron, because she didn't want to think about the fact that she'd never see them again, if Littles was correct.  
 _  
_Fortunately, she'd brought a book, so she buried her nose in it while the students milled around her. She did keep an eye out for Snape, Lily, and the Marauders nonetheless.

_There's Professor Lupin_ , she noticed, _and James, Sirius, and Peter behind him._ She decided there and then that she'd make more of an effort to be her other former professor's friend. While he was indubitably a Marauder, she still recalled him with fondness, and was keen to 'resume' their friendship.

She then spotted Snape, and she closed her book over her thumb and raised it to wave at him, but she was dismayed to see that he was busy talking with his Slytherin friends. At the sight of them, Hermione for once found herself agreeing with Lily Evans: Snape would certainly be better off without them as friends. She was not one to discriminate generally by appearence, and in fact she consciously attempted to avoid such unfair generalization, but it was fairly obvious that these boys were of the Wrong Sort.

After a while, Hermione felt conspicuous waiting outside the Great Hall, hopping from foot to foot nervously. Having chickened out in approaching Snape, she was hopeful that maybe she could talk to Dorcas or someone else she knew for a bit before going in for dinner. Then again, she figured that she probably had already missed most of the Gryffindor sixth years, because she was not seeing any.

Then Lily came onto the scene. A surge of jealousy seized Hermione as she regarded the girl she'd marked as her rival: Lily had developed into an even more womanly form over the warm months. While there was not much that Hermione could pinpoint as being different about the other girl, there was a certain plumpness about the chest that Lily's previously girlish figure had not sported, there was a certain sashay in her step, and there was a certain luxuriance in her hair.

_We have such similar lifestyles_ , Hermione mourned, comparing her squishy pear-shaped figure negatively to Lily's toned body. _Why do we look so different?_

Opening her book again, she watched as Lily made a beeline for Snape, approaching him from behind with a poke that caused him to leap in the air and reach for his wand before he realized that it was only the redheaded Gryffindor. The rest of his friends glowered at them both while Snape just looked embarrassed, his face flushing as he looked from his disapproving Slytherin comrades to Lily.

Her hand gripped her exam results tightly--she wanted to have proof when she confronted Lily Evans, perhaps repaying her for her humiliating of her so-called friend.

However, as she was walking toward the redhead, she was interrupted by a mop of stringy blond hair on twiggy limbs. Jenny was tanner than ever, and she smiled brightly at Hermione.

"Hey, Hermione, how've you been over the summer?

Jenny smelled sweet and smoky, of cannabis, and Hermione sighed. She was disappointed to see Snape and Lily pass her by as they went into the Great Hall, splitting up before they each reached their tables. Still, that didn't mean she couldn't be polite to the eccentric Jenny, so she nodded with forced interest.

"Quite all right, it was rather busy," she stated ambiguously.

"Busy? Huh," the other girl said, smiling. "I'd say I had a _busy_ summer, too."

"Mine wasn't _that_ sort of busy," Hermione mumbled, her eyes wandering towards the Gryffindor table. Lily had one spot empty next to her, and Hermione intended to take it.

"I worked at a soup kitchen and my uncle's store," Jenny said, sounding amused. "What sort of busy did _you_ mean?"

"Erm, nothing, talk to you later," Hermione almost squeaked, turning away.

"The guy I did from Amsterdam sounded exactly like you just did when we _did_ it," exclaimed Jenny unabashedly, making Hermione even redder as she walked away to the Gryffindor table.

"...No, we didn't get together over the summer, we're just friends, all right?" Lily was saying grumpily to Deborah, who was clinging all over her like a fly in a sticky spot of spilled butterbeer. "So bugger off."

"Don't use that sort of language with _me_ , Lily Evans," Deborah said with motherly condescension, though Hermione couldn't quite tell if she was being serious or if she was joking. Hermione was inclined to think that the girl was serious.

"Hi, Lily," Hermione interrupted, taking careful note of the fact that she'd entered a conversation wherein a _he_ was mentioned, "I got a one-o-five on my Potions O.W.L." She couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at this, as she had worked at least twice as hard in that subject as in her other ones, so getting a grade of that level had been quite the ego-boost for her.

"Congratulations," Lily said, looking neither surprised nor unhappy. In fact, she had an air of delicate resignation that Hermione couldn't interpret. "That's an excellent score. Do you intend to go into potions-making? Perhaps get your mastership?"

"Well...perhaps," Hermione said, though honestly she hadn't given much thought as to what she would do with her stellar grade except beat Lily. She had good enough grades universally to be a competitor for an aurorship (albeit barely in the case of DADA), but there was never anything in which she'd spent a lot of time developing any specific talent. Until now, it seemed.

"So why'd you work your arse off for the grade?"

Hermione frowned, not wanting to admit that the whole reason she had tried so hard (beyond her usual zealousness for grades) had been to beat Lily. Finally, she said, forcing a rather grand tone into her voice to mask her uneasiness, "Because even though I don't know what I specifically want to pursue as my future career. I wish to keep as many of my options open, if you understand what I mean."

"Oh, of course," Lily replied, taking a quick bite of the roast turkey before continuing, "that makes perfect sense. So potions isn't something that you've set...well, set your heart and soul upon?"

"No, not really," Hermione replied, feeling a distinctly odd feeling inside her as Lily continued acting in perfect nonchalance, "in fact, I think I prefer Charms."

"Charms is fun," Lily agreed, her voice warming up as she gushed, "After Potions, it's one of my best subjects, and probably my second-favorite! What grade did you get in that?"

"One-hundred and four," Hermione admitted, having to fight a roll of the eyes. She hadn't felt as glorious about getting that grade, though, because Charms was _easy_. Potions wasn't.  
 _  
_"That's...wow, that's incredible!" Lily answered, her eyes widening. "So if you think about it, my getting a one-eleven in Potions isn't a far cry off. I only got a one-hundred and two in Charms."

"Why, thank you... Wait." Hermione's eyes widened, and she faltered as her throat seemed to tighten. " _You_ got a one-eleven in Potions? _One-hundred and eleven_!"

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

If Hermione were a weaker girl, someone like Lavender Brown or maybe Deborah Smith, she would have fainted away right then and there. As it was, however, she just got up, ignoring the demonstrations from Lily, who kept insisting that 'it wasn't a competition' and 'you don't even like Potions that much' and 'it's just a number, after all, based on talent and chance'.

At which point, Hermione had snapped, "Not _just_ talent and chance, Evans. Hard work factors into it much more than you might suppose."

"That's a given," Lily replied, but her voice had faded away as Hermione stomped out of the Great Hall.

Now she was in the library, sitting at the seat she still privately viewed as _her_ seat. Staring into space, Hermione tried to understand what had happened. It just seemed impossible. _How did she do it?_ wondered Hermione to herself, her face numb and eyes wide. _I studied harder than I have ever studied before; I spent hours each day memorizing the textbook. How did she manage to beat me...and so badly at that?_

Hermione's mind seemed as slow as molassas right about then, but even in her stupor she knew perfectly well that the grade that Lily Evans had received shouldn't have been possible.

_One-eleven?_ Hermione hadn't imagined that the graders could give anything higher than a one hundred and five, because that was the highest grade she'd ever heard of on the O.W.L.s. The study manuals themselves hadn't mentioned anything that high, with one hundred and five being listed as something so challenging that it was rare to see more than one or two of them across _all subjects_.

_How did she do it?_ Hermione asked herself, feeling so incredibly low that her eyes were beginning to sting with tears and her scalp was itching. Weary and exhausted by her pent-up emotions, she lay her head down on the table to clear her mind. The cool, grainy wood felt nice on her hot forehead, and she contemplated the smells of aged varnish and cleaning polish residue. _How did she bloody do it? I've gone over everything I did, again and again, and it was all exactly right! I didn't make a single, bloody mistake, so how did she get SIX points more than me!_

Hermione was no fool after all, and the only time she had ever seen a grade that high was in Muggle Studies in that exhausting third year of hers, where she had gotten a one-hundred and twelve...but even then, she had been operating under the massive advantage of _being_ a Muggleborn. It had been almost like being a world-renowned Arithmancer and going back to do sums again. _And Lily came within a point of matching that score... That's...just not right..._

"Might I ask why you're dirtying our clean table with that unruly mane of yours?" came a sarcastic voice from Hermione's side, causing her to jump. Apparently, at some point during her depressing musings, Snape had come into the library, sitting down beside her.

"Hi," Hermione said, swallowing back the tears that she felt were imminent, "How'd you do on your O.W.L.s?" She tried for nonchalance, hoping that a normal conversation focused on someone else would help her forget her worries...or at least distract him from bothering her about them.

In response, Snape's face tensed, his dark, cold eyes fastening on Hermione. For a moment, he said nothing, looking for something in her face that only he could find, then he muttered, "Decently. And yourself?"

"Not as...not as good as I'd hoped," she managed, though her eyes continued to sting and her throat was tight. "How did you do on...Defense Against the Dark Arts?" She bit her lip as she said this, hoping she might distract Snape from her for long enough to get herself under control.

Snape seemed to know that something was up, however. He spoke briskly, annoyance creeping into his voice, _"_ What's got your knickers in a twist? I saw you and Lily discussing something over dinner; does this have to do with that?"

This made Hermione come perilously close to spilling her guts; as it was, she swallowed forcefully and said, in a voice that was irregularly high-pitched, "No...no, not at all."

Which, of course, confirmed to Severus that it did.

"I suppose you're going to tell me about it?" he groaned in annoyance, shutting the book that he'd been reading. "Go on, then."

As she looked blankly at him, not sure if he really knew what he was saying--not sure if she could deal with the implication of what he was saying--he cajoled further, "Out with it, girl. If you don't, I'll go back to my book and you can snivel in the bathroom all alone later."

The idea that this was _Snape_ asking her to confide in him was so ludicrous that Hermione began to laugh--and, against her will, to cry.

"Whaa-aa-aat...utter..." she said, valiantly trying to hide her tears, but she caved, folding her arms on the table and burying her head in them. "...Rot."

This didn't seem to be what Snape expected. He was taken quite aback, and his eyes were as wide as a piece of parchment. "Not...rot." he said feebly, in a confused tone of voice.

"Yes, it is rot. It is!" she quibbled, feeling snot drip down her face and onto the table, but she was so out of sorts that she didn't care. "Rot, rot, rot. All my life is rot."

"Not rot," Snape countered, terse but seeming to get over his initial paralysis. "Rot is..." He tried to demonstrate some inexplicable meaning with a wide, sweeping gesture, but to no avail. Hermione knew he was just saying things, probably wanting to shut her up. She was proved right when his facade broke. "...Granger, just bloody stop crying! I'm a dashed sharp shoulder to cry on."

"I-I c-c-can't!" wailed Hermioned, causing some of the other patrons of the library to look over in confusion, staring at the blubbering brunette.

Snape's sallow face flushed a mottled red as he realized this, but he said nothing. Perhaps he understood tears better than he'd admit. The idea that he thought her pathetic made her cry even harder. Of course, even if it _were_ the end of the world, Snape would still be telling her to shut her noisy gob. That was ironically a rather comforting thought, as nothing else seemed to have stayed the same since she had arrived in this time; even if it weren't particularly nice, at least it was something _normal_.

However, a shadowy presence nearby alerted her that Madame Pince was on the prowl, so Hermione began to gather up her books, sobbing intensely. Snape did the same, a scowl on his face as he put his ratty books away.

"Come," he insisted hotly, which surprised Hermione quite a bit. She already had been such a burden to him, why did he want to stay with her? Still, he was offering her a hand as he brusquely snarled, "I haven't all day, so move, you silly chit!"

Although confused by Snape's manner, Hermione took his thin hand in hers, allowing him to lead her out of the library. With her following in numb fascination, Snape strode over to a nearby door and wrenched it open, revealing an empty classroom that Hermione vaguely recalled would be used for Muggle Studies in the future. Transfiguring a pair of dust-covered desks into stiff, wooden chairs, he sat at one and pointed at the other.

Sitting down carefully, the dim light making it almost impossible to see with tears filling her eyes, Hermione waited for him to start berating her. _It would almost be a blessing_ , she thought, _that would mean I was that much closer to home._

For some reason, she felt especially insecure about herself, and all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed at home and cry it out. But she had no home anymore, no family, nothing. That was her present...and her future.

Snape asked, albeit in clipped tones, "Alright, what happened between you and Lily at dinner?"

Hermione bit her lip, quailing at the idea of speaking to the man she still thought of as her acerbic Professor about her personal life, but in the end she responded. Timidly, she spoke, her eyes closely examing her trainers as she did so, "You see, I made a bit of a bet with Lily Evans over the summer, saying that I'd beat her in Potions on the O.W.L.s...and I studied like a madwoman, but still couldn't beat her. I mean, how is it even _possible_ to get a score as high as she did? _How_!"

"That's what this is about? Potions?" Severus' eyebrows knit, confusion written on his face. He was obviously irked, his dark eyes boring into hers in an angry glare. "The way you were carrying on, I thought that this was something _important_ , not silly grades!"

"You wouldn't understand..." whispered Hermione, feeling betrayed at his furious reaction.

"Perhaps, but it's not like there's anything you can do about it, is there?" said Severus with a shrug, glancing longingly at the doorway behind him. However, rather than leave, he spoke reflectively, "Sometimes, there's nothing we can do, no matter how hard we try. If you can't change things, then you'll have to accept them one day...whether you like it or not."

There was a moment's pause, then he suddenly leapt to his feet, saying in a tight voice, revealing wide, scared eyes as he did so, "I need to go, Granger." And putting actions to words, before Hermione could blink he had strode out the door, leaving her in the dust of the old classroom.

Hermione could only stare at the doorway in confusion. _What was that about? Why's Snape acting so...odd?_

Although she wasn't able to puzzle out what was bothering Snape, a man who somehow managed to be just as much of an oddity at the age of sixteen as that of thirty-five, at least one good thing came of her ponderings: she couldn't focus on her pain and humiliation...

...At least, not for the moment.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Note: Hermione's reacting so strongly because it's her _grades_. Her validation of self-worth is wound up in them. So that's why she's so stunned. And while I know Hermione's quite competent at potions in canon, I'm taking the interpretation that Snape and Lily are just more naturally talented. Because, it's really just fanon that Hermione was JUST as good at potions as Snape and Lily were.


	15. Chapter 15

After Snape left the dusty classroom, Hermione proceeded immediately to bed that evening, her limbs heavy and her stomach tossing with nausea. Part of it was Lily's victory in their little bet over Potions. In fact, Hermione acknowledged that that was most of it-but in reality it was more the self-loathing thoughts that accrued after the fact.

Amid the mental turmoil, she was thoroughly curious why Snape acted the way he did. Why did he talk to her? Why did he take them somewhere private? Why did he leave so suddenly? She had no answers for herself, and it only made her depressive condition worse to contemplate them.

Weeks rolled by like the careful tolling of church bells for a funeral. Hermione found it harder and harder to rise every morning, to put in the effort for her classes, to bother with talking to anyone. But her life was also one full of contradiction: she was both hungry and unable to eat, both acknowledgeably selfish and hating herself for it, both desiring to succeed as she had once but knowing she was utterly incapable of doing so.

And so she became more and more despondent, more and more reclusive, and more and more unhappy.

She did try in her classes; she might get a sudden burst of energy and spend hours doing research, poring over old texts to her heart's delight; but when it came down to writing the essay afterward, all she could do was curl up in her bed, hug a pillow to herself, and fitfully sleep.

The cause of all this? She puzzled over it a bit, but definitively laid the blame on her own failure to win over Lily in the O.W.L.s. And it wasn't so much that she _hadn't,_ per se...it was because she couldn't understand _how_ in the _world_ Lily could get such a high grade. In her experience, such was nigh impossible! Hermione had studied her _arse_ off for those tests. There was just... no possible way that Lily could have done _better_ than her, with how little that girl studied! Hermione had been in the library almost sixteen hours a day on average at the time that Lily _should_ have been studying like heck. And Lily was certainly not in there with her for sixteen hours at a stretch. Not even once.

So it boggled Hermione's mind.

Another thing that bothered her, though only slightly, and only in retrospect, was the fact that Snape had considered her distress rather pitiful. _He called the pursuit of the best marks "silly"_ , she remembered. _How could that be? He becomes a teacher! Teachers should, by virtue of their profession, take marks very seriously._

This did perplex her as well, if only because it made her wonder whether or not Snape actually _would_ become a professor. _Or has my presence here changed everything?_

The latter thought was too scary to contemplate, however, so she forgot it with the efficiency of someone who has trained the mind to eradicate unnecessary and disturbing thoughts.

Sometimes she tried to resolve her issues by going to talk to Severus again in the library, but inevitably every time she had both gumption to talk about them and access to him, Lily either walked onto the scene or was conveniently nearby. So she avoided him, and his supposed 'best friend'.

_Hmph, it seems that now as soon as I'm watching her, she's taking great pains to do her studies..._

She did admit to herself that Lily _had_ spent at least some time in the library studying for O.W.L.s, moreover with Severus, and she even more begrudgingly admitted that perhaps in her vilification she was exaggerating Lily's feat. But she didn't know by how much she was exaggerating, and anyhow, she didn't care much.

Actually, she cared very little for anything by the end of September, and October arrived without event or consequence.

Everyone around her was getting excited for Halloween, but Hermione was habitually aloof. Her inclination was to hide from the world almost as soon as she set foot outside of her dormitory, even more so with the impending holiday, and she responded to the feeling by sitting in the back of the class, never leaving the privacy of her four-poster except for class, and never (gasp!) raising her hand in class.

To keep people from talking to her at the breakfast, lunch, and dinner tables, she ate lots, and quickly. To keep people from bothering her on the way to class, she kept her nose in a book, practicing her skills at walking without watching where she was going. To keep people from annoying her while the curtains on her bed were drawn, she pretended she wasn't there. It was a melancholy life, but she told herself she enjoyed it.

She didn't think the first person to disturb her funk would be James Potter.

"'Lo there," he said one Monday morning, slipping into the seat immediately next to her and dishing a platter of eggs onto his plate. "I don't think I've talked to you this year, Aussie. How are you?"

Saying nothing, Hermione placed a third generous dollop of bangers on her plate.

"Oh, there's no need to be rude, Aussie," the boy said in a jovial tone. "We're not that unalike, you and I. And I mean, we did get off on a bad foot, but dash it, it's not as though that was the best possible first impression that either of us could give, right? I mean, me picking on Snivelly...you tumbling out of that old tree and showing your...unmentionables..."

For a moment, Hermione silently gauged the eyes of her kippers-on-rye, somewhat shocked. _Did I flash everybody?_ Hermione wondered, perturbed, staring at the fish on her toast, which seemed to stare back with protruding eyeballs.

Then she broke her focus from her food, turning her head away from Potter as though to look at the head table.  
 _  
_"I thought you claimed to be a _gentleman_ ," she said haughtily, trying to hide the tears that began to sting her eyes, but she choked on her words because she hadn't said a word to anybody for three days straight and her throat was tight.

"A what?" asked James Potter innocently, seeming honestly surprised. "You thought I was a _what?_ A horny toad? Come now, be a sport Miss..." He paused, elegantly gesturing for her to supply him with a name.

"Bugger," Hermione muttered, looking down at her breakfast, which she was keenly aware was getting cold. She didn't want to be bothered. All she wanted to do was toddle back to bed, cuddle Palsy in her arms, and descend to slumber.

"Miss Bugger!" exclaimed Potter delightedly, in a giddy way that eerily resembled Gilderoy Lockheart. "Splendid to meet you. My name is James Potter, if you didn't know, son of Sir Henry James Potter of Doveshire."

All she could snappily retort was: "I know." Breathing deeply and closing her eyes, she tried to imagine that she was back at home again, and that the soft, strong timbre of Potter's voice was Ron's-though the blooming arrogance that Potter expressed didn't seem to fit, given that his pompousness was more akin to the attribute of a Malfoy...though the thought of a person being a mix of Lockheart and Malfoy and Ron all at the same time...While some people might not understand someone like Potter, she was absolutely confident that she could...He wasn't so difficult, really-just the spoiled son of a wealthy pureblood who had a voice like her lost beloved..

"...well? Would you agree, my dear Miss Bugger?" inquired the boy in a polite and teasing way, smiling and ruffling his (Harry's!) silken black locks in a way that Hermione couldn't see her old friend doing.

"I...I don't think...that I know," she replied, evading the question with some embarrassment. It had been a while since she had been so spacey in a conversation. But then again, how long had it been _since_ she'd had a real conversation?

Potter chuckled like Ronald at that. Hermione was reminded at once of a Hoover salesman, and wondered how Ron might have looked in uniform selling clunky Muggle cleaning apparati.

"Don't be dodgy, mate," Potter stated, and Hermione's fingers drifted to grasp the second scone on her plate. "Wouldn't want to be like _Snivellus_ , eh, leaping into shadows like the coward he is, hiding behind flowerpots and suits of armor and whatnot and crying for his mummy. He thinks he's so bloody smart-"

"-He _is_ , for your information," Hermione said before she could stop herself. _Why do people in this world seem to think that Snape's an idiot? He's clearly brilliant._

"I beg your pardon?" Potter squinted at her like a giant troll looking at a mouse, but the muscles in his face seemed to indicate that he was holding back a smirk. " _Snivellus_ is _what?_ "

"Bloody brilliant," Hermione stated, then shoved the rest of her scone in her mouth so that Potter could think about the idea for a minute.

"Well, I must say that I disagree," Potter said carelessly, swigging his morning pumpkin juice in a cavalier fashion. "I'd reconsider that suggestion, Miss _Granger_. But no matter."

Before she could come up with some sort of comment, Potter laid down his utensils, cast her a silent wink, and sauntered away.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

Sometime that week, Hermione received a note on some plain stationary requesting that she come to tea with Dumbledore, so after her classes she freshened up a bit. She was a bit anxious that someone had taken notice of her consciously-antisocial behavior, and out of desperation to prevent other people from forcing her to take a more active role in school life, she knew that she needed to pretend to be perfectly happy when called to close inspection.

 _I can alienate people as much as I choose, and accept people as much as I choose_ , she decided, practicing smiles in the mirror until her cheeks hurt.

Her self-consciousness heightened when she entered Dumbledore's office, neatly attired in a wrinkle-free uniform and a spot of rouge on her cheeks.

"Good afternoon, Professor," she said, the bright tone of her voice forced. She'd much prefer to be in bed; the only reason she was awake at all was because she hadn't eaten at all that day, because lately she tended to overeat herself to blotatedness and sleepiness, and in favor of looking as fresh as possible for her interview, she thought it wisest to forgo her meals.

The obvious result was that her stomach, deprived as it was for so many hours, rumbled pensively. She'd prepared for that eventuality as well, by having refreshed the silencing charm on her abdomen early, before class. She wanted to make _certain_ that no one thought there was _anything '_ wrong' with her.

"Ah! Miss Granger," Dumbledore greeted her warmly, ushering her to the chair at his desk. "It's been rather a while since we've had a chat, I do think."

"Rather," she agreed, slipping into her chair as primly as possible.

 _Which way to cross the legs?_ she questioned herself. _Right over left? Left over right? Which way would Deborah Smith do it?_  
  
"How have your classes been for the past two months?" questioned Dumbledore amiably.

"Topping," replied Hermione, trying to be glib. "To my knowledge, I'm doing quite well."

"Undoubtedly," Dumbledore commented, continuing. "And your teachers?"

"Quite knowledgeable, wise, and relevant."

"Hmm, indeed. And what, may I ask, do you think of your fellow students?"

 _Nothing so far I didn't expect or prepare for_ , Hermione thought, _but this one's harder to pull off._

"Pleasant enough. I get along just fine with the lot of them," she said, hoping that she sounded enthusiastic but also as though the subject had no especial importance to her.

"Do they give you any difficulty concerning your 'foreign' status?" Dumbledore asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

She smiled in a fashion that might have been interpreted as amused. "Aside from the affectionate nickname of 'Aussie', I'm perfectly all right with my peers on that point, sir. Now," she continued, hoping to divert the Headmaster's attention, "I'm sure you didn't ask me here to just quiz me on how I'm coming along, did you, sir?"

Albus Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled in his timeless manner. "Just so, Miss Granger. As much as I would like to devote more time to taking tea with my students, preferably all of them, I find that I do not have the resource to do that. I admit asking you to tea is taking a liberty on my part, given this stack of ridiculous paperwork I ought to be completing." He gestured to an untidy pile on the desk that didn't seem nearly so formidable to Hermione as he seemed to find it.

Her gaze implied the workings of her thoughts, however, and Dumbledore chuckled mirthfully.

"Not everything is as it seems, Miss Granger," he said, and picked up one of the papers from the top of the stack. As he did so, he tapped it with his quill, and the whole thing expanded like an accordion into a neat stack of papers about a foot high.

She laughed at that; the faked cheerfulness was beginning to rub off on her just a little.

"In any case, Miss Granger, I'd just like to hear you describe what happened in your second year with the Chamber of Secrets. Lamentably, I've been thinking about your revelations from last spring very closely, but as a consequence the memory is no longer quite as accurate as it used to be."

Sighing, for the immediate danger of someone finding out her misery had passed, Hermione entered upon a monologue similar to that she'd given before for Dumbledore.

"...and Harry did slay the grotesque thing with the Sword of Gryffindor, though Fawkes had to cry on the terrible wound he got. It healed right up, of course. I don't know how Harry was able to survive so long against the basilisk, but Fawkes brought the Sorting Hat to Harry, so all he had to do was reach in and find it."

"So Harry was unable to control the basilisk despite his knowing parseltongue?" Dumbledore queried intelligently.

"...I believe so," Hermione replied, feeling a bit sad because her thoughts dwelt so much on her home timeline. "But once he stabbed the thing through the roof of its mouth, it couldn't obey anyone anymore."

"And then, as you told me before, he stabbed the diary which had contained the memory of Tom Riddle with a fang from the basilisk?"

Hermione nodded.

"Very good, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said, standing up and patting her shoulder in an amiable way that inferred, _this tea is over._ "You've been of invaluable service to both myself and your school."

"How so?" Hermione asked, though she had an inkling of what he probably intended to do. _I think he's going to destroy the basilisk._

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find out ere long."

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .


	16. Chapter 16

A few days after her visit with Dumbledore, it was a few days before both Halloween and Deborah Smith's 17th birthday.

The girl was of more noble lineage than even the Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, or Sirius Black of Hermione's time, being a direct descendant of the first son of Helga Hufflepuff as well as sharing close ties to a good number of European monarchs. Moreover, not only were they one of the most regal wizarding families in England, they had been _the_ richest wizarding family since the eighteenth century.

From what Hermione knew from her history classes in the 1990s, Corpus Smith (whom she presumed was Deborah's father or grandfather) was a terrible investor and would ruin the family's capital by 1985 due to a number of particularly bad speculations that would severely deplete the family's finances. So it was said in Hermione's time, Corpus was extremely superstitious and paranoid, and had little respect for family money or heritage. His aim was admirable enough: to put away the money where Voldemort could not touch it.

However, as Binns had put it, the man was 'as ill-bred and ignorant as they came', and, in his frenzied attempts to protect it, he lost it all because people took advantage of him in his panic. Some people had made cheating old families out of their assets into a rote system, or even an art.

Given what had happened to Harry's 'fortune', Hermione knew that this was not an uncommon situation for wizarding families in the 1980s recession; the Smith family was a mere case study that represented a few dozen families of all house affiliations, including Slytherin. But it hugely surprised her when Deborah Smith announced her enormous Halloween Ball, hosted at the Smith's elegant winter mansion.

 _I suppose it's like America in the late 1850s_ , Hermione thought pensively. _Even while the family is falling into economic disaster, they forcefully deny it by hosting extravagant parties to flaunt their wealth, pretending that it's not going down the drain._

Most of the girls and boys from Gryffindor were invited, particularly those in Deborah's class. This included Hermione, even if it was just out of a gesture of cordiality.

"Here we go, I made these myself this morning," Deborah said, handing out the pretty cream-colored parchment invitations to Hermione, Dorcas, and Mary. "You may each bring a date. But no Slytherins. My father _detests_ Slytherins."

Mary nodded in sardonic acknowledgment, but Dorcas whined, "What about Barty Crouch, Debbie?"

"Hush!" Deborah insisted with a blush, jabbing Dorcas in the stomach with her elbow. "Don't blab about things like that! And _do not_ call me 'Debbie!'"

 _What a hypocrite,_ Hermione thought, laughing internally. _And what irony! She's got a crush on one of the most Slytherin Slytherins out there, despite how much she ostensibly hates them._

Hermione herself couldn't decide on whether she agreed or not; she _knew_ that Snape wasn't all as bad as his house-mates, but was it because _he_ was _him,_ or because _they_ just looked bad to everybody who wasn't _them_ , or because _she_ had a skewed perception of _them_. In any of these cases, however, she knew that she had some doubt.

 _Are they 'evil' because they are, or are they 'evil' because we think they are?_ she queried to herself.

She felt herself look for Lily at this time, wondering what the other girl's reaction to Deborah's obvious bias would be, but Lily was not there. She'd not come up with them after dinner to the dorms, so she was probably downstairs in the common-room.

"And everyone, _please_ remember that not _everyone_ is invited-"

"-Invited to what?" came a voice, preceding the entrance of Jenny into the room.

"Oh, hello, Jenny," said Deborah, clearly flustered. "It's a party. I am turning of age on the 31st, you know."

"Do I get to come?"

"Of course, of course," said Deborah, in such a way as to disguise her grumbling. It was evident that she hadn't meant to invite Jenny in the first place. "Just...don't bring a _Slytherin_ for a date, understand?"

Jenny plunked onto her own bed and stretched out, her position making clear to the other girls that she was _not_ wearing a bra. "Eh, Slytherins' are all right. Their snakes are just as firm as the rest of them. Sometimes they give _me_ a treat after I've done them a good turn, too, though _that's_ probably to make me come back to tickle their snakes again. Which technique works, 'cus I do."

Deborah looked grimly scandalized, Mary grinned, and Dorcas turned rather pink and looked at the floor.

"But don't I get an invitation?" Jenny asked, rolling across her bed in a fluid manner, reaching over, and grabbing an invitation out of Deborah's hand.

Deborah's eyes burned with indignation. "Give me back that invitation," Deborah ordered, standing with a military alertness and trying to twist the thing out of Jenny's hand.

"Cain't. I'd still remember when and where and whatnot!" the girl chortled, sliding the invitation into her underwear.

Hermione, safe from her vantage point on the bed, knew that Deborah was just leaping at the first chance she could get to justify uninviting Jenny. She also knew that Deborah would not be so weak as to do the inevitable finger-chasing. But she did not know what was up when the upcoming birthday girl drew her wand and pointed it at Jenny's temple.

" _Obliviate._ "

She murmured the fateful spell while everyone else stared in horror, then quickly pocketed her wand again.

Jenny, on her part, shook her head vigorously, saying, "I don't think I had a joint after dinner...or did I? Eh, whatever, what's this in me pants?"

"It's mine, actually," Deborah said smugly. "Please give it back?"

Jenny slid her fingers under her waistband again and laughed. "Erm, do you _want_ it back?"

"Yes, rather."

So Jenny withdrew the paper. Something gooey was all over it.

"Oh...Merlin..." Deborah turned very green and buried her face in the nearest pillow.

"I think ye'd be better throwin' that awaey, love," Mary said, looking ill at the sight as well.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist," Jenny said ironically, and chucked the thing across the room into the wastebasket. "I just _love_ watching Slughorn's belly jiggle. It's such a refreshing change, to lust after a fat man. It's even better than thinking about Flitwick's spindly hands..."

"You are sickening," muttered Deborah.

"I know," Jenny said with a laugh, rising and stretching. "Is my fat fetish is just a phase? I don't know. But I think I'll nip over to the boy's rooms. I'm late for my date with a plump seventh year. Not as roly-poly as Slughorn, but still quite chubby and jiggly. So sexy." With a cheerful whistle, she reached under her bed and withdrew an enormous bag of assorted candy from Honeydukes and skipped out the door.

"Ugh!" Deborah exclaimed to Dorcas. "That invitation was _supposed_ to be for _Lily..._ now I've got to order more _paper_ , because I only bought exactly enough to make _exactly_ the number of invitations I was planning...do write that in my planner, will you, darling?"

"Of course," Dorcas said quickly, reaching into her pocket, withdrawing a little golden notebook and quill, and scribbling ferociously.

Hermione couldn't help but feel a force of indignation as she watched Deborah, a frog in a small pond, acting like such a spoiled brat. It made her so heated. _This feeling is the reason I started S.P.E.W.,_ she noted with frustration. _I've got to do something._

"And do remember, Mary; you _must_ R.S.V.P. to Dorcas by tomorrow if you are coming," Deborah said, biting back exasperation. "If you forget, I won't let you come."

"I knaow, I knaow," the northern girl said, sounding quite unconcerned. "It's jest like yeur winter jolly last year."

"Do you even _want_ to come?" asked Deborah, very tense.

"Not shure eef I shoulde come, ye knaow," Mary said, shrugging. "It'll bae on Soonday. And I don' knaow if me captain's comin' or not. And I've not feenish'd the four fet for Charms yet, neither. "

"It wasn't a four-foot assignment," argued Deborah, but Mary was already going out the door, and the birthday-girl was met with the slamming of a door.

"I'd dis-invite _her_ as well, but I don't think it would serve a purpose," Deborah said with a scoff.

"You know," Hermione said, taking advantage of the lull to stand up, "I don't think that what you did to Jenny was nice at _all_."

"How do you determine _that?_ " Deborah mused, sitting and crossing her legs prettily. She looked so innocent, as delicate as a princess, but yet her behavior demonstrated that she was more like the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland. It made Hermione so angry.

"You...why, you didn't want her to come in the first place," Hermione began, her face contorted with accusative rage, "And instead of honorably telling that to her face, you create some convoluted situation so that you can seem to be 'in the right' instead of just flatly saying to her, 'Jenny, I don't want my parents to find you shagging in the garden on the night of my party, so if you can promise to keep off the guys, you can come.' What utter bull is that!"

"Shush, _Aussie_ , you don't know what you're talking about," Deborah said. "Jenny...she's not proper."

"That may well be," Hermione said in a rush. "But you're not even giving her a fair chance, you know? She _could_ be proper, given the proper warnings and context. Do you know for certain that she wouldn't abide by your request on your _birthday?_ "

"No, I admittedly-"

"-But have you ever tried _talking_ to her?" Hermione continued, "Have you ever demonstrated your _concern_? Have you ever thought that she might have _feelings_ , that she might actually _care_ about _you,_ but that because _you_ don't seem to care about _her_ , she therefore doesn't care what you say to her? What sort of Gryffindor _are_ you?"

"Do acknowledge," Deborah argued, clearly getting upon a high horse, "that our mutual _friend_ has a...propensity to do whatever she feels like. We have, in the past, tried to make her see reason," Deborah said, ignoring Hermione, her voice cold. After six years, we hardly think it worth any further effort. So _drop it_."

"But you're not even giving her a chance to prove herself! You're...so _judgmental!_ A disgrace to Gryffindor!"

Her words rang throughout the room while the other girls absorbed them, the following silence echoing louder than any noise. For a moment, Hermione felt that she might have gone a tad too far, then Deborah spoke, her soft words cold as an arctic blizzard, her green eyes expressing nothing short of absolute fury.

"Judgmental? A _disgrace?_ Well, _Aussie_ , let me explain something to you: there are, as my mother says, the _proper_ sort, and the _improper_ sort. Jenny is a perfect example of the latter, what with her disgusting habits and embarrassing actions, and after this conversation it is clear that so are _you_." Taking a deep breath, the other girl then bellowed out, " _Dorcas_!"

"Yes?" asked the other girl, a little nervous.

Deborah, her haughty face deformed with hatred, spat out, "Please take _Miss Granger's_ invitation, and cancel the order for new paper. It seems that we'll not be needing to make a new one for Lily."

Obedient, but with some apology in her eyes, Dorcas stepped forward, her hand extended. With haughty decorum, Hermione placed the invitation on Dorcas' hand, but crumpling it in her fingers first.

"Now," Deborah said, turning away, taking the invitation and tapping it with her wand until it looked fresh and new once more. "Go and give this to Lily."

"Yes'm," Dorcas replied, and speedily exited.

"Oh, and _do_ tell her not to invite that uncouth Slytherin who hangs about her," Deborah called, but the door had already closed. "Ah well. I daresay, Lily being the _proper sort_ , she wouldn't do anything so obscene...not like that _Australian,_ " Deborah stated, smirking at Hermione. "Now _she_ is a disgrace to Gryffindor!"

And with that, the lights in the room went out, leaving Hermione cold and alone in the darkness. _  
_


	17. Chapter 17

That evening, as Hermione lay in bed, she began to contemplate all the hullabaloo about Deborah Smith's birthday, in perhaps the worst of ways.

First of all, she'd forgotten her own birthday, what with the time-traveling and all.

 _When I left the 1990s, I'd just barely had my birthday a few weeks before_ , Hermione observed, _so when September rolled around...well, I guess I didn't think about it._

Birthdays had never held much importance for her family; it always would be a normal day, with sometimes a special dinner if she asked for it, sometimes just a present or two. Never a cake or a big party or anything, what with their opposition to sugar that always accompanied said confectionery and events at which said confectionery would be mandatory.

Her parents provided for her well, and she never was lacking for anything at all over the course of the whole year. They just never gave her very much on her birthday. They did demonstrate that she was special on the day, of course, but it was always short-lived because they were such busy people. They'd wish her many returns of the day, then continue about their usual business.

That was the way it had been at school, as well. Ron... _oh, dear, forgetful Ron_...had always forgotten her birthday until two weeks after, unless Harry (who did have a mind for dates, given a temperament to melancholia and inbred sentimentality) reminded him much in advance.

Harry was one person in her life who did treat her well on her birthday, showering her with as many presents as he could afford. He thought a good deal of birthdays, especially given how the Dursleys had treated their son on _his_ birthday and how jealous Harry had been to see Dudley get so much...when he didn't even get much more than a card.

Second, thinking about Harry and Ron made Hermione feel immensely depressed, particularly because of one reason: she hadn't even thought about their birthdays since she'd left her own time.

 _I'm such a miserable friend_ , she decided, her verdict painfully searing her soul. _I'm so miserable that I didn't remember Harry's birthday at all, and it just passed me by without me even sparing it a thought. I'm such a terrible person. And now I've been alienated from half of the girls in my dorm, I'm getting tragically fat, and everyone here hates me, and my life really is just in the absolute pits._

So she cried, more than ever.

_Terrible, absolutely terrible. I should have done something in Harry's honor on July 31st. Where was I on July 31st? Studying my arse off for no reason. I'm terrible, just terrible._

With these thoughts in mind, she felt so depressed that she couldn't sleep. She tossed and turned all night, and when the morning came, she was grateful for the opportunity to have something to do besides weep on her soggy pillow.

Even though someone had stolen and hidden her shoes over the course of the night, and even though when she found them they had been maliciously covered in mud, and even though she had to spend half an hour cleaning them, an early breakfast was refreshing. None of the girls from her year were there, just a bunch of Gryffindor Quidditch nerds who were getting ready for practice.

"'Lo there, Granger," James Potter said, walking past and grinning as she contemplated eating more rashers. "Up with the sun, are we?"

"Shut your gob," replied Hermione in a highly un-amicable fashion, but Potter just clapped her upon the back and continued on his way.

Other than that, she was left undisturbed to as many helpings of doughnuts and fancies and other delicacies as she wanted.

Soon her stomach couldn't take any more, and she trudged upstairs to the library.

Tucked away in her own Snape-free corner, Hermione relaxed enough to let the tears spill once more.

 _How is it that I can do nothing right?_ she thought to herself angstily. _I'm worthless. Such a good-for-nothing..._

"Good grief, Granger," came the biting tone of Severus Snape as he sat down next to her.

"You're up early," Hermione replied, wiping away tears fruitlessly with her hands.

"What's the dilemma?" Snape asked, as coldly clinical as he might have asked a question about a potion that was going a little wrong.

"You wouldn't understand," she whimpered, drawing her scarf out of her bag and wrapping it around her face.

"But you also wouldn't mind telling me," he answered sardonically, opening his book. "So, out with it."

"I don't want to tell _you_ ," Hermione replied nastily. "You're..."

"...What?" Snape asked, when she couldn't find a word.

"Someone I just can't tell," she said sheepishly. "Nor can...nor can I really tell anyone, really," she went on, feeling the magnitude of her situation settling upon her with the weight of a thousand anvils. "It's...it's not good, not good at all. I can't do anything...can't tell anyone..."

Hermione didn't think she would ever see Severus Snape appearing _concerned_ , but when she looked into his eyes, there seemed to be no alternative. He was _worried..._ for her!

"Tell me," he whispered, "I see that you crave it."

His voice had gotten so low that Hermione felt a tingle seep down her spine.

"I simply _can't_ ," she whimpered, though if she'd had a shred of faith that she wouldn't have an instant tongue-tying curse upon her, she would.

He surveyed her for many minutes, trying to gauge...something. She couldn't tell what he was on about, but she also knew that he wouldn't take any sort of _no_ for an answer.

"Well," she admitted, "maybe telling you part couldn't hurt."

"No, likely not," agreed Snape in a genuine fashion.

With a deep inhalation, Hermione closed her eyes and breathed, "There was an anniversary I missed, you see."

"...Of what sort?"

"Of the...yearly sort. It was a birthday, actually." She sniffed and unraveled the scarf a little bit, to better dab the tears that still slipped down her face.

"Whose?"

"A friend." Her voice cracked. "A dear friend."

With that, she bent her head with deep sobs.

The strangest thing happened before she had time to think; one moment she was falling onto the table, the next moment her face was hidden in the warm, human smellyness of Severus Snape's wool jumper. He seemed to try and wiggle away, but she embraced him tightly. After a few moments' resistance, he let the mantle of his impervious mien fall, and he also let his arms surround her.

He was touching her...he was _touching_ her! When was the last time anyone had touched her, particularly with such kindness?

It felt, to Hermione, like it had been a very long time. She didn't think of the times when she'd been slapped on the back by James Potter (like she had that morning), or touched someone's hand when passing a platter of food at the table. She just thought of simple, genuine hugging, and realized how much she had missed it.

Snape didn't seem to not enjoy it, himself. However, as she cried, he patted her shoulders clumsily. He didn't tell her to shut it, or go and leave him alone. He let her find in him what she needed most, and accepted that what she needed most might be human touch.

Finally, he broke the silence. "It was...the birthday someone you cared for very much?" she heard his voice say above her, intense and compassionate.

"Rather. But I didn't love him...no...not like that..." she felt herself saying, still feeling all energy drain from her body.

"And now he's gone?"

She paused. "He's no longer with us," she said evasively, crying harder because her words were true but because the connotation that came with the words was so inept for the situation. "My best friend," she heard herself saying, "that's what he was, I suppose."

This seemed to resonate with Snape; of his own volition, his hold upon her became tighter for a moment as he squeezed her softly.

"But you didn't...love him?" he managed to question.

"No. Not Harry," she confessed, and at once she felt very strange, as if she were saying something that she knew would make Snape unhappy. It was a very peculiar feeling, as though she'd slapped her only benefactor, and she felt guilt and shame and consequently more tears.

 _If I were in my own time, I'd never, NEVER be in this position!_ she acknowledged with fascinated horror, but she also realized, _But then again, this Snape has never heard of Harry. He doesn't hold the same hatred for Harry as the Snape of my own time held. But they are still the same person. I just felt guilty for saying something to THIS Snape that I know would have hurt the 'real' Snape._

"Who was Harry? And when was his birthday?" Snape asked, still holding her against him.

"His birthday was...last...July..." sobbed Hermione, feeling wretched, "...and I really didn't realize I'd missed it until now..."

"Hush," Snape said, but he was cajoling, not admonishing.

"He's such a poor boy," Hermione went on, "His terrible aunt and uncle have to raise him, because he's an orphan, but his life is like a fairy tale, like Cinderella, because he actually had a huge fortune in Gringotts."

"Mhm," Snape answered, also insisting for her to continue in the same monosyllable.

"And he's such the greatest friend, if only because he never had any friends before he came to the wizarding world...he knows what it's like to be alone...he saved me before from alienation and loneliness when I first came to the wizarding world, because I'm a Muggleborn..."

Snape nodded, saying nothing.

"But now he's gone, when I need him most...I mean..." She hesitated, because she didn't want to sound whiny, but she threw away her caution.

"All right...well, did you know that it was my birthday on September 12th?"

Snape said nothing, of course.

"Obviously not; nobody knew, save perhaps the teachers who read my applications. No one knew it was my birthday," Hermione went on, "but I know that _he_ would have...but now I'm all alone...I'm all alone...oh Merlin! I miss him, and the littlest thing I could do for him, I failed him, and he deserves such a better friend than me...I'm just scum."

It took Snape more than a few minutes to muster up the courage to reply to all of that. When he did, he didn't sound as though he thought his words would be very effective.

"You care," he said, his voice as rough as gravel. "You care so much that you think you're scum. Granger, if you weren't such a ninny of a Gryffindor, you'd realize that it's usually people who think they are scum who _aren't_ scum." He continued, though he sounded unsure, "And...it's usually only people who think they aren't scum who _are_ scum." More resolute, he added, "Like Potter, for one brilliant example."

Hermione laughed, still tearful. "Why _do_ you hate James Potter so much? I mean, he _did_ save your life."

This caused Snape to stumble back from her, wide-eyed and outraged. It was terrifying to see him change so fiercely, one moment a placid day and the next moment a torrential downpour. "What do you know?" he hissed. "If you knew what _really_ happened, instead of just listening to hearsay, you'd _never_ have asked that question."

"I...I'm sorry," Hermione said, beginning to cry again. "I admit...promise...I don't know the first thing about what happened...I just knew that James Potter saved your life."

"For the sake of preserving his _own_ skin, not out of some extraordinary benevolence on _his_ part," sneered Snape, falling against the back of his chair vehemently. "Are you some posh barrister trying to incriminate me?"

"No!" Hermione insisted, her tears stopping out of the invigoration of aggravation.

"Well, it seems bloody likely!" Snape snarled.

They glared at each other for a few minutes, and then Snape yielded with a sigh.

"Fine. Tell Dumbledore that I'm abiding by his bloody _rules_ ," he said, putting his head on his hands. "I didn't say anything to anybody."

"Can't you believe me? I'm not...masquerading as anybody," Hermione pleaded, beginning to cry again. " _Please_!"

"It's self-evident, _Granger_...if that _is_ your name..." Snape said with finality. He stood up, gathered his books, and stalked out of the library, leaving Hermione feeling even more alone than she had been before he had arrived.

For the next few days, Hermione spent almost all her time in the library, addicted to reading, leaving only for frequent naps and huge meals.

These latter came more and more often since her terrible interaction with Deborah Smith, who had started a ferocious movement to publicly ostracize Hermione.

She couldn't sleep with the creepy feeling that she was disliked so much by the girls in her own house. Sure, she'd been unpopular in her own time, but it had never felt as bad as _this_.

No one in the dorm would talk to her, it seemed. Then again, even if they had wanted to, Hermione didn't wait to find out. She stayed in the shower until everyone else had gone to bed at night so that no one would bother her while she slipped into bed.

She said nothing and reacted to nothing.

Thus, no one said anything to her. She was more alone than ever. The closest things to acknowledgement that she received were Severus' glares, but those only made her feel worse, as they served as reminders that the Slytherin boy refused to speak to her in class.

For a few moments then, she despaired.

But merely a day before the party that seemed a celebration of the things she _lacked_ , an incident occured that made her smile for the first time in days.

As she sat in the library, nibbling on biscuits she'd nicked from dinner the night before, Hermione felt a bit tired, so she lay her head down to sleep. When she awoke, there was a small brown paper bag, in which she found a little package tied with string.

Hoping it wasn't a prank of some sort, she poked it with her wand, then, after a few hesitant moments, opened it.

 _Huh,_ she thought noncommittally as she opened the parcel that was included. It wasn't anything more than a bar of soap, but one whiff of the scent of freesias told her that it was home-made, and would be pricey if bought in a store.

Along with the package came a single piece of paper, upon which was scribbled this:

_I'm sorry, Miss Granger. Happy birthday._

_S.S._

Hermione smiled.


	18. Chapter 18

The afternoon of the 31st, before the Halloween party, Hermione was laying in bed, feeling ill and tired and lonely. The bar of pretty-smelling new soap from Snape sat, unused as of yet, upon her bedside table.

She reached from beyond the curtains of her bed and stroked it a little with her thumb, then brought said appendage up to her nose to sniff the sticky residue. She'd never thought much of the scent of freesias, but for some reason they struck a chord in her. Now she couldn't wait to visit her aunt, who grew them, so that she might pick a basket-full.

Beyond her domain, she listened to the voices of her fellow dorm-mates as they pranced about, preparing for the ball. Everyone was there, save Deborah and Jenny; the former was at the mansion already, being tended to by her mother and probably many house-elves, while the latter...well, it could only be imagined where Jenny might be.

But Lily, Dorcas, and Mary were all brimming with excitement, which made Hermione feel sad. She might have joined in, since the oppressive force of Deborah had been whisked away to the land of silk stockings, pins, and sewing thread, but the fact that the other girls were preparing for Deborah's party quailed her.

At least, that's what she told herself; it was more likely that it was both a combination of this fact and the fact that she'd eaten far too much at lunch, and now she was bloated and couldn't button her already-too-tight jeans, and thus was sulking.

"Oh, Deborah's going to look _so_ stunning tonight," Dorcas said merrily. "But I guess you two are fit to compete with her if ever anyone could!"

_Yeah,_ Hermione thought petulantly, yanking at the button-flaps of her jeans, trying to get them to close around her over-stuffed tummy. _Though I'd be a real stunner, too, if I could go...stun everyone with how my dress is coming apart at the seams!_

"Oh shush, ducks, this ol' thing's lasted me an 'ole six 'ears, what with me careful expansion charms an' all," Mary said. "It's Lily 'oo's the _real_ beauty, eh?"

_Six years!_ Hermione thought, aghast. _My clothes haven't lasted longer than three or four years..._ She peeked out the curtain to evaluate Mary's dress, then nodded to herself. _Well, I guess that is feasible. She's got the same body I had at eleven. Even if I had anything from that long ago, it wouldn't fit now, what with my big belly..._

Feeling even more depressed, she sat up, pulled her shirt off, and looked down at the creamy rolls of flesh that surrounded her abdomen. It was fascinating as much as it was shameful and disgusting, to see to what extent she'd grown.

_If only I'd acquired something in the way of knockers, while I'd been at it.  
_  
"You lot are too nice," Lily said with a giggle. " _Oooh!_ Let me spin."

There followed a pause and a thump as Lily lost her balance and grasped Hermione's bedpost. Hermione saw the other girl's fingers as they made their imprint on the chintz, and they looked like a dementor's. Hermione quickly pulled on her shirt again, tucking it into her underwear so that it wouldn't ride up her belly. She didn't want anyone to see her like this, if someone thought it would be okay to open the curtains uninvited.

"Lovely, simply lovely!" cheered Dorcas, and Hermione exhaled deeply. _They didn't even apologize for disturbing my curtains_ , she thought, and noticed with chagrin that as her diaphragm expanded, so did her stomach's volume, and thus the hem of her shirt snapped up to rest at her waist, revealing four (in her mind, eight) inches of flabby stomach that Hermione detested to see.

The door to the dorm opened, and Hermione heard the light tread of Jenny Hazard enter the room.

"Hi, all," she greeted, clearly morose but trying to sound chipper. "Getting ready for that party? I say! You look topping, Lily."

"Thanks, Jenny," Lily said, though a bit more quietly, "I wish you could have come." _Wish I could have, too,_ Hermione thought.

"Aw, cheer up, mate, don't worry 'bout it," said Jenny dismissively, sounding as though she was trying to forget the whole thing. "I'd not have remembered the _incident_ anyhow, if Mary hadn't told me that I'd been Obliviated." She laughed bitterly at that. "Fancy that? Well, while you all are cavorting at this shindig, I'm going to 'ave me a lovely smoke, I will. Who wants to go to some silly party anyway, that's what I says. I don' like gettin' all dolled up for some guys..."

Her tone was forced into flippancy. Flopping onto her bed, she continued, "I admit, I prefer to dress _down_ if you know what I mean, ladies."

It was very obvious that she was disappointed at being not included, however, and the other girls tried to be chipper.

"That's the reason you're not going," Dorcas said with a giggle.

"Yeah, and besides, Debbie's definitely jealous," Lily inputted, "I mean, it's her party, but no doubt she knows _you'd_ be the one that the boys'd flock to all evening!"

"It's like potions, really," Jenny said with a shrug, though she sounded as though she'd reasoned it out already, had come to a conclusion that she only half-heartedly believed, and was trying to repeat it over and over again. "Some ingredients have a powerful waft. You could say the same 'bout me. Only while newt's eyes smell real gross, I smell like really hot s-"

"-I'm really sorry about that whole thing," Dorcas interrupted, in a confidential tone. It was interesting how chipper she was this evening; the girl was brimming with self-confidence. Hermione wondered where she'd got it. _Did she steal what vestiges of it that I had in September?_

"Aw, don't bother," Jenny said, "though, I must say, Dorky, you've lost some weight." Her tone was a bit strange, as though she was sad and trying to hide it through disapproval.

"I've been sticking to Mary's regimen," Dorcas said, sounding mildly annoyed. "Three cups of applesauce a day, one boiled egg for breakfast, four slices of chicken and a few raw carrots at lunch, and a bit of broth with vegetables at dinner. No grains, no dark meats, no...chocolate...or muffins..."

Her words trailed off, and all of a sudden she sounded quite unhappy.

"Huh," Jenny said. "Huh." Hermione didn't hear anything else from her, save the telltale unwrapping of one chocolate frog...another chocolate frog... _another_ chocolate frog...

Even with the background chatter, Hermione dozed for a quarter hour, until she heard some juicy information that made her perk her ears up.

" _Peter_ kissed you?" asked Lily in surprise.

"Uh-huh," Dorcas replied, her voice as cheery as a lark.

_No wonder she's so frivolous and confident today_ , Hermione thought, sluggish and apathetic. _She's got herself a bloke.  
_  
"My first kiss, I must say," Dorcas continued, and all the girls _oohed_. " _His_ first one, too, I'll bet..."

Jenny let out a half-hearted snort at this, her head propped up by her elbow.

"I'm just...ecstatic, you know?" Dorcas went on, her voice oozing with joy. "Like, my life is _finally_ the way I want it. I'm thin(ner), I've got a great job as Deborah's assistant, and I've got myself the guy I've been crushing on for two years, you know? It's like...this year has been my best. And it's all thanks to that book I read, Dr. Hegel's _Guide to Self-Improvement_. It really worked! I feel like I could do anything...even be Head Girl next year, if I wanted to..."

"That's _Lily's_ dream, don't ye think ef bargin' in on it!" Mary said, though it sounded like her mouth was full of hair-pins. (Which, if she was the designated hairdresser of them all, that would explain her relative silence for the whole conversation.)

"No, no I wouldn't want to be Head Girl, not really, of course," Dorcas replied gently, succumbing to her place in second-class, "but I _feel_ so great that I feel like I _could_ , you know?..."

At this, Hermione tuned out, her attention melting into introspection. _Have I ever felt like that?_ she wondered, feeling bitter. _Just so deliriously happy that I couldn't stand it?_

She found nothing in her process of recollection.

_And now...now I'm most definitely NOT there_ , she whined to herself, feeling anxiety and depression forcing itself upon her shoulders.

_Let me think about something that makes me happy_ , she thought, _like...like Ron...?_

The question wasn't meant to be a question. In fact, she knew quite clearly that she shouldn't have wondered if Ron made her happy at all. But for some reason, she felt like it was a stretch to remember him, aside from the idealized memories of him that she'd been reliving over and over. It was terrifying to realize how much she'd forgotten about him. Did he take his ham sandwiches with katsup or mustard? Were his burps, the ones that directly followed large meals, higher or lower in sound than the ones that occurred an hour after eating? Was the shade of his hideous maroon sweaters more on the light side or on the dark side? She simply couldn't remember some of these little things.

_How miserable a friend I am,_ she noted. _How miserable a lover._

It didn't occur to her that she might be just a little silly with trying to scrape up these trivial things from her memory. But then again, her memory _was_ something in which she'd always taken so much pride.

As her eyes began to fill with tears, she heard the other girls gathering their bags and leaving the dormitory, apparently to the party.

Hermione was alone again.

Belching loudly in a way that could have competed with Ron, she pulled her shirt up again and looked at her distended abdomen, just stared at it. _I look like I'm preggers,_ she thought, not realizing that she _might_ have been exaggerating in her distress.

"Hey...'Mione?"

_Oh gracious me! Jenny's still here! That loud burp...oh dear!_

Filled with embarrassment and guilt, she remained silent, hoping that the other girl would decide that she'd been mistaken and eventually leave.

_I have become the perfect fatty_ , she mourned. _I belch, loud and long, without remorse or shame!_

"'Mione?"

_She says my name like Ron did..._ Hermione thought, and then the curtains were suddenly pulled apart. Jenny stood there, her eyes a little red and her e'er-present smile absent.

"Hi," she said quietly. "You okay?"

"Fine, fine," Hermione growled, pulling her shirt down as far as it could go. It didn't hide the fact that her underwear (pulled all the way up) showed because her jeans wouldn't button.

"I don't think so," Jenny said, gently ungrasping Hermione's fingers from the hem of her shirt. The shirt bounced up again to reveal fleshy skin. "Over-ate?" Jenny said in a companionable fashion, and Hermione shrugged, pulling her shirt down again with one hand.

"No need," Jenny said, detaching Hermione's fingers once again, letting the shirt shimmy up once more. Jenny placed the palm of her hand on Hermione's stomach, which made Hermione's hair prick up.

"What are you doing?" she hissed at the intruder, sitting up straight and glaring intently.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm just interested," Jenny said, retracting her hand quickly. Before she could appear to be embarrassed, she clarified, "Erm...well, I need to touch someone, you know. Feeling rather blue."

"Because of the party fiasco?" Hermione asked brusquely.

Jenny nodded. "Not very groovy, you gotta admit."

She sighed. "I don't ask for much from these people...but they've got a vibe that crushes my spirit, man."

"And I'm different?"

Jenny's eyes were soulful and deep. "Ain't your spirit bein' crushed, too?"

"What an abstract way of thinking about it," Hermione said, trying to internalize what Jenny had said. Was she being crushed by the other girls? She wasn't sure, but she realized that Jenny had a point.

"We should talk," Jenny said. "Us misfits should hang together, man, like all those other hussies, only different. How 'bout after the 'alloween feast, yeah?"

"Mmm...sure," Hermione said, though she was reluctant to admit that she didn't have any work to do.

"Groovy," Jenny said, perking up a little bit. "You can bring a friend, if you want. Preferably of the bloke persuasion. And bring some food...lotsa."

With that, she patted Hermione's protruding belly, saying "Take care, now", and slipped out of Hermione's four-poster.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

After this strange intercourse, and after a brief nap to settle her stomach, Hermione went to the library to attempt at some studying. The cold, arid atmosphere was most calming, and she curled up in her usual corner, though she was hoping that Severus wouldn't come. She was miserable enough about the party, but she didn't feel like adding insult to her injury. Sure, she'd booked a hang-out date with Jenny, but that wasn't enough to lighten her spirits.

For a while, Hermione was left blissfully alone. Snape was nowhere to be heard or seen, and since a good third of the school was also at the party or preparing for the Halloween Feast, nobody was in the library.

She couldn't concentrate on her books, though; she would start reading something like _A Study on the Life-Cycles of the Gunkworm and its Relevancy to Potions_ , but instead of poring over the recipe and envisioning how to make it in her head, the words blended together on the page, and her eyes began to get a little bleary. When she tried to put her mind to history, reading _The Primary Phase of the Goblin Wars,_ even the pictures couldn't hold her attention, and she ended up staring at a corner of the library ceiling. In despair, when she tried to reason with the novel _Ragged House-Elf_ by Boomie von Klackety (which, disappointingly, wasn't much about house-elves at all) the style of the prose and the author's subjective, misogynistic tirades made her so angry that she hid the book in the deepest depths of the dusty history section.

Upon returning to her table from this self-assigned task, Hermione was surprised to see Severus there, decked out in a cream-colored suit that was both too big for him and making his skin look like plaster. His mood was visibly low, as well, and Hermione was quick to spring into action.

"Hi, professor," she said glibly, slipping into her chair. "You look like hell, frozen over."

" _Go away_ ," Snape growled, his head hanging low like an admonished swan. He'd made an effort with his hair, which was parted neatly and oiled, and...did she see a smidgen of terribly-blended _concealing makeup_ on the circles under his eyes?

"That's inconvenient," Hermione said, taking out a chocolate bar from her bag and splitting it in half. "Here. This'll help."

He looked at the piece that she pressed into his hand, somewhat dumbfounded.

"What?" she asked as she watched him look at it. "You've seen chocolate before, right?"

"You don't need to give me...I'm used to...only Lily's ever..." he said, struggling with how to respond.

"It's melting," she observed. "Eat it."

He responded well to the command, quickly inserting the progressively-gooey thing into his mouth. This resulted in chocolate being spread across his lips, as well as his hand. He licked furiously, his squishy long tongue trying to get every drop of the stuff from out of the crevices in his hand.

_The sight could be fairly erotic, given the right circumstances,_ Hermione thought. She'd always loved watching Ron eat. But for some reason, she wasn't turned on by it; instead she pitied Snape all the more. _He looked like no one had ever done him that service before...as though he's the kind of person who always gets excluded when someone gives out candy, the kind of person who always gets uninvited from parties...like me, really._

Then something clicked in her mind.

"Have some more chocolate," she insisted, feeling a bit queasy. "And after, tell me what you're doing all dolled up like you are. From whom did you borrow that suit?"

"Bulstrode," the glum young man replied, taking a grubby handkerchief and wiping off his hands before touching the next piece. Once invited to take the other half of the chocolate bar, he made no complaint.

"Were you planning on going to...that party?" Hermione asked, empathizing greatly.

"I _did_ ," Snape said snootily, shaking a little bit with indignation, and Hermione realized that he smelled a little odd.

_Like...nail-polish?  
_  
That wasn't quite right, but she couldn't place the smell.

"What happened, then?" she asked, readjusting herself, curling her legs under her bum.

"Rejected. No invitation."

"Did you lose it?" Hermione asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Never got one. My date...invited me, but she was planning to meet me inside. Without her, I wasn't allowed. For being a _Slytherin_."

"Wait..." Hermione asked, incredulous. "So...you went with Lily?"

He nodded.

"It's just as well, what happened" he commented, terse. "I wouldn't have wished to be where I was more than _slightly_ unwanted."

_What strange phraseology_ , Hermione thought. _'More than_ slightly _unwanted'?_

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, realizing that Snape was wholly crushed.

He opened his mouth to reply, but shut it again quickly, closing his eyes and resting his chin on his chest.

"Please...Severus...talk to me," Hermione begged, feeling all the more sad because _he_ was sad. "I...I want you to talk to me."

He remained quiet, his teeth clenched and his shoulders a little bit hunched forward.

"Well, here's something that might cheer you up," Hermione said, "me and a girl from my dorm...we're having a little party tonight. She said I should bring someone with. Do you want to come with me?"

Somber, he contemplated this for a few minutes, though Hermione wasn't sure at first if he'd even heard.

"Fine," he said. "After the feast?"

"Yes," she replied.

He nodded again. "Not formal, I presume?"

"Not at all," Hermione replied with a smile. "So you go get out of that ridiculous monkey-suit. It's six sizes too big, and the wrong color for you besides."

Snape shrugged. "Beggars can't be choosers," he said sagely, and rose. He still looked desperately unhappy. "Later, Hermione."

He walked out of the library, taking a drink from a vial from his pocket as he went.

_Alcohol. Firewhiskey,_ Hermione mused. _That's what he smelled like. Not nail-polish. Poor dear. At least he has some company, tonight..._

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

The Halloween Feast was far from a feast, in both levels of merriment and food. The house-elves seemed to have forgotten the date, because there was not the usual feast-level of magical variety. The food was excellent, of course, though the tables were simply not groaning with festive delicacies.

Perhaps the reason for this was that Dumbledore was not present. Nor was McGonagall.

The relatively sparse arrangements were fine by Hermione, who was trying to makethe conscious effort to not eat more than half a plate of food, realizing that her weight problem was growing more and more serious. She knew that she needed to get under control again.

Hermione had to sit alone, since it seemed that Jenny had come early and was sitting with the older Quidditch jocks. It disgusted Hermione to see how much that girl ate, yet Hermione was filled with envy. How could that little stick eat so much and still not show it?

But Hermione ate up, filled up her bag with goodies for the party, and rose.

She observed that the people-count was severely depleted, because so many people had gone to Deborah's party, including a large number of teachers. Only a few remained to supervise; the willowy Sinistra (with whom, notably, Deborah did not have class), Hagrid, Filch, and Professor Button, the boring and nerdy Muggle-studies teacher.

_It's not fair_ , she reasoned, _that the entirety of the school will give Deborah her grades based on this stupid party!_

It would have made her sick to her stomach, if she wasn't still so hungry.

Severus, as he approached her, was the only distraction she found for food.

"Hi," she greeted kindly, "do you have something to bring to the party? If you don't, you should grab something to contribute; we're all just..."

Her eyes widened as Snape showed her the label of a large bottle of firewhisky, which he hid in his robes again as soon as she'd seen.

"No," he said, rather smug. "Nothing whatsoever."

"Where'd you _get_ that?" she hissed, super-paranoid that one of the teachers would see. "That's _such_ a violation of the rules!"

"Erm...Bulstrode. He's coming, too, and bringing two more bottles. But he wanted me to carry the third."

"I...see..." Hermione said, still not thrilled.

"So, where are we going to go?" Severus asked. He seemed a little more loose of tongue than he had been earlier, but the fact that he still had alcohol on his breath made Hermione shiver.

"I don't know," she said, trying not to let her nose be overwhelmed by the smell, "but I figured we could just wait for Jenny-"

"-Jenny? Jenny who?" Severus asked, eyes widening in horror. "Not...not _that_ girl! Not Jenny Hazard, the 'come-and-go' girl!" The realization was forceful. "Ugh! Merlin! No wonder Bulstrode's going!"

"Yeah...well...we kinda are room-mates," Hermione said, sighing, biting her lip as her cheeks, embarrassed. "Does...does that mean you won't come?"

He paused, glancing into her eyes.

"Fine," he said, begrudgingly, "but _no_ funny business, understand?"

"Of course," she said, instinctively taking his hand and squeezing it.

Severus gave her a strange look, but didn't comment.

. . . x . . . X . . . x . . .

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfiction Writers and (non)Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!  
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